TU/e notebook program - Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Evaluating such a situation can be done with a financial evaluation method, several of which
are described in the following part of this section (below).
On the other hand it is more difficult to assign benefits to IT when the applications are more
at the strategic level. Strategic information systems can aim to increase customer satisfaction:
the problem is the criteria which with these advantages could be measured.
A similar hard to measure advantage is the costs that are saved, or the benefits that are gained
regarding the loss or preservation of market share when implementing a strategic information
system. The last two issues are impossible to measure with only financial evaluation methods.
For that reason there is a shift towards the use of both financial and non financial methods, the
so called multi criteria evaluation methods. These multi criteria methods provide a more well-
balanced result of an IT evaluation. An overview of this is given in this table.
Characteristics “old” investment evaluation Characteristics “new” investment evaluation
Financial
Multi dimensional: financial and non
financial
Identification of cost savings
Emphasis on content
Local, stand alone facilities for a small
number of users
Functional oriented
Dominant role for the IT department
High technical risk systems
Optimization of project portfolio
Emphasis on evaluation in advance
Emphasis on project control: costs and
throughput time
Search for strategic opportunities
Integration of content and processes
Integrated infrastructural facilities with broad
availability
Beyond functional orientation
Dialog between managers, IT department,
and users
High financial and organizational risks
Avoiding poor solutions and uncertain
actions
Integration of evaluation in advance and
afterwards
Emphasis on project control: management of
benefits
Table 2.1 Evolution IT evaluation, source: Investment evaluation of IT projects. Berghout & Renkema, 2005.
22/85