It would seem that business investment in information technology (IT) is at root no different from business investment in anything else. After a careful consideration of the costs of the investment and its anticipated benefits, a decision is made as to whether the benefits of the investment outstrip the costs and by how much. If the benefits are competitive with other investment alternatives (say, a major marketing campaign), then the business will commit financial resources to the IT proposal. Otherwise it won't. This decision making process is at the heart of capital budgeting. Senior executives have been making IT investment decisions for well over three decades. So why is the measurement of IT investment payoff so difficult and controversial? Why do we need a book dealing with contemporary approaches to measuring IT investment payoff? Why have earlier approaches to measuring IT investment payoff proven unsatisfactory? In what respects have earlier approaches fallen short?
Do we need to scrap earlier approaches entirely or can we find important improvements to these approaches such that they can be newly applied to effectively measure IT investment payoff in ways that are convincing to senior management? This book should help readers find improvements in existing methods for measuring IT investment payoff, as well as to find new, innovative methods for addressing the value of emerging IT.