11.1 Introduction

An approach that an organization may wish to undertake in assessing the potential of an IT system is to perform an overview evaluation using a simple ranking and scoring technique. The procedure involves rating a system or a group of systems against a series of general evaluation criteria. This approach is quite similar to what Parker et al. (1988) refer to as information economics . The evaluation criteria involve issues such as industry attractiveness, internal value chain, industry value chain, offensive or defensive thrusts, etc. Other issues not directly related to strategic concerns, but which affect equally important dimensions of a system may also be included.

11.2 Five Steps to Evaluation

There are five steps involved in an overview evaluation:

1. Select the criteria

2. Associate weights to each criterion

3. Score systems in terms of how they satisfy the criteria

4. Calculate a system s rating by multiplying each score by the weight and then summing to a total

5. Select the system with the greatest total score

The key issues of ranking and scoring addressed here are:

• Strategic value

• Critical value

• Operational value

• Architectural value

• Investment value

• Risk assessment