Gartner analysts will further discuss how to prioritise IT initiatives, while balancing the use of resources at Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit 2011, 14-15 June in London. For more information please visit europe.gartner.com/ppm
Everyone "knows" that B2B customers buy products when you show them the economic advantages of buying your offering. Often, you can develop a strong economic argument without collecting massive amounts of data, installing enterprise software systems or spending a ton of money. In this webinar, Jim Geisman of Software Pricing Partners shares his extensive experience working with companies to sharpen their value propositions.
Jim Geisman provides practical advice and tips that have helped B2B marketing and sales professionals in companies ranging in size from global companies to start-ups.
RoIT - How to Justify Information Technology (IT) and Other Programs via ROI
The word is out. Management and financial officers no longer accept vagaries, such as: "It's a must for corporate survival to stay competitive", " We owe it to ourselves to go ahead with this new initiative, our competitors are", "It will help leverage our present IT or technology infrastructure", "We'll be at the frontier of knowledge and ahead of the game"......
The fact that you must now compete for scarce corporate investment dollars with other projects, and the fact that purely intangible considerations are no longer enough to justify investments forces CIOs, IT executives, technologists and operations personnel to a) prepare pragmatic proposals; and b) justify them in quantitative ROI terms in order to stand a chance of gaining approval for your vital investment initiatives.
Return on Investment is a term often mentioned but rarely defined or understood. As a result, IT and business managers find themselves struggling to develop some measure of technology’s business value. For too many, the answer remains elusive.
In this workshop technical and business professionals will learn how to answer the fundamental question: "What is information technology worth?" And they will learn to do it in straightforward non-financial and financial terms.
Participants will learn about the "tangibles":
the traditional "financial measures" (NPV, IRR, payback) in easy to understand terminology
why the actual calculations are the easy part
how to solve the real challenge - deciding what numbers to use and where to find them
Participants will also learn how to show IT’s value when traditional monetary measures simply can’t tell the story. For example:
Will the organization be better off as a result of this project and expenditure? How?
What tangible changes in key business operations can we expect? How much?
We know security is important, but how much is improved security worth?
What is the value of better information or faster access?
What do we get for our investment in infrastructure?
Participants will leave this workshop with:
a new way of thinking about IT’s value,
tools and techniques for quantifying business value, the ability to communicate IT’s value in clear, tangible terms that business decision makers will understand.
Decision-makers will get clear, concise, and actionable requests
Investment in business information technology (IT) should not be valued in a vacuum. The investment must be for business purpose that is used to increase company revenue, market share and profit (via reduced expenses); therefore, IT projects need to be evaluated as any corporate use of funds.
Gartner analysts will further discuss how to prioritise IT initiatives, while balancing the use of resources at Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit 2011, 14-15 June in London. For more information please visit europe.gartner.com/ppm
Everyone "knows" that B2B customers buy products when you show them the economic advantages of buying your offering. Often, you can develop a strong economic argument without collecting massive amounts of data, installing enterprise software systems or spending a ton of money. In this webinar, Jim Geisman of Software Pricing Partners shares his extensive experience working with companies to sharpen their value propositions.
Jim Geisman provides practical advice and tips that have helped B2B marketing and sales professionals in companies ranging in size from global companies to start-ups.
RoIT - How to Justify Information Technology (IT) and Other Programs via ROI
The word is out. Management and financial officers no longer accept vagaries, such as: "It's a must for corporate survival to stay competitive", " We owe it to ourselves to go ahead with this new initiative, our competitors are", "It will help leverage our present IT or technology infrastructure", "We'll be at the frontier of knowledge and ahead of the game"......
The fact that you must now compete for scarce corporate investment dollars with other projects, and the fact that purely intangible considerations are no longer enough to justify investments forces CIOs, IT executives, technologists and operations personnel to a) prepare pragmatic proposals; and b) justify them in quantitative ROI terms in order to stand a chance of gaining approval for your vital investment initiatives.
Return on Investment is a term often mentioned but rarely defined or understood. As a result, IT and business managers find themselves struggling to develop some measure of technology’s business value. For too many, the answer remains elusive.
In this workshop technical and business professionals will learn how to answer the fundamental question: "What is information technology worth?" And they will learn to do it in straightforward non-financial and financial terms.
Participants will learn about the "tangibles":
the traditional "financial measures" (NPV, IRR, payback) in easy to understand terminology
why the actual calculations are the easy part
how to solve the real challenge - deciding what numbers to use and where to find them
Participants will also learn how to show IT’s value when traditional monetary measures simply can’t tell the story. For example:
Will the organization be better off as a result of this project and expenditure? How?
What tangible changes in key business operations can we expect? How much?
We know security is important, but how much is improved security worth?
What is the value of better information or faster access?
What do we get for our investment in infrastructure?
Participants will leave this workshop with:
a new way of thinking about IT’s value,
tools and techniques for quantifying business value, the ability to communicate IT’s value in clear, tangible terms that business decision makers will understand.
Decision-makers will get clear, concise, and actionable requests
Investment in business information technology (IT) should not be valued in a vacuum. The investment must be for business purpose that is used to increase company revenue, market share and profit (via reduced expenses); therefore, IT projects need to be evaluated as any corporate use of funds.
Everything you think you know about Enterprise Performance Management is WrongTidemark Systems Inc.
The era of CFOs as gatekeepers who primarily oversaw transactions is over. To grow aggressively, companies need a modern approach to business analytics. CFOs need real-time insight, context around data, and collaboration capabilities to take their business to the next level. Real time insight from big data and modern systems give CFOs the data they need to improve decisions, reduce risk and improve performance.
CPOs Leverage Investment for PerformanceBill Kohnen
CPO’s Leverage Organizational Investment to Optimize Performance. Top performing Purchasing organizations carefully time and monitor investments for: people, resources, travel and training to enable better performance now and in the future.
How to Build a Business Case for ERP ReplatformingBlytheco
As part of Blytheco's "Are You Ready for Replatforming?" online class series, this presentation walks through the whys, hows, and specifics of how to create a winning business case for ERP transition.
Buyers have a new obsession. It is called 'benefits realization', or alternatively 'benefits delivery'. They have lost faith that promises made before the sale will actually materialize and are determined to intervene to ensure that they do. But if buyers are focused on benefits realization, then sellers must be too. In this article we will show you how you can use this important concept to boost your sales success.
David Beard
CRM Evangelist - Sage CRM Solutions
"With over 10 years involvement in business analyst & project management roles for a variety of companies in the IT, telecommunications & banking sectors, David brings a wealth of experience in helping companies define what a customer means and how best to interact - across both cultural & systemic contexts"
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: implementing ERP and CRM systemsSageukofficial
David Beard, from the business software company Sage UK, looks at market place trends driving the thoughts of software vendors. He then considers why businesses often fail to realise the measurable benefits from ERP and CRM software implementations and what they can do to widen, and thus, improve their approach.
Everything you think you know about Enterprise Performance Management is WrongTidemark Systems Inc.
The era of CFOs as gatekeepers who primarily oversaw transactions is over. To grow aggressively, companies need a modern approach to business analytics. CFOs need real-time insight, context around data, and collaboration capabilities to take their business to the next level. Real time insight from big data and modern systems give CFOs the data they need to improve decisions, reduce risk and improve performance.
CPOs Leverage Investment for PerformanceBill Kohnen
CPO’s Leverage Organizational Investment to Optimize Performance. Top performing Purchasing organizations carefully time and monitor investments for: people, resources, travel and training to enable better performance now and in the future.
How to Build a Business Case for ERP ReplatformingBlytheco
As part of Blytheco's "Are You Ready for Replatforming?" online class series, this presentation walks through the whys, hows, and specifics of how to create a winning business case for ERP transition.
Buyers have a new obsession. It is called 'benefits realization', or alternatively 'benefits delivery'. They have lost faith that promises made before the sale will actually materialize and are determined to intervene to ensure that they do. But if buyers are focused on benefits realization, then sellers must be too. In this article we will show you how you can use this important concept to boost your sales success.
David Beard
CRM Evangelist - Sage CRM Solutions
"With over 10 years involvement in business analyst & project management roles for a variety of companies in the IT, telecommunications & banking sectors, David brings a wealth of experience in helping companies define what a customer means and how best to interact - across both cultural & systemic contexts"
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: implementing ERP and CRM systemsSageukofficial
David Beard, from the business software company Sage UK, looks at market place trends driving the thoughts of software vendors. He then considers why businesses often fail to realise the measurable benefits from ERP and CRM software implementations and what they can do to widen, and thus, improve their approach.
Making IT Work for Your Business - 4 Key Concepts to Get the Most Out of Your...Audrey Reynolds
Learn key tools, processes and best practices from the Business Analyst toolbox that you can use to make better technology decisions and manage your IT projects effectively.
A solid business case provides the foundation for implementing a successful shared services organization. This is the first session in an HR Shared Services learning series that ScottMadden presented in conjunction with SSON. In this session, we covered the elements of a good business case including examining current costs, projecting costs and savings based on your future design, and conducting sensitivity analysis to understand possible outcomes. This presentation provides detailed guidelines and lessons learned for developing a sound business case.
For more information, please visit www.scottmadden.com.
“Good SHE Is Good for Business” How many times have we heard that phrase being used? And how many times have we been told that tmoney is not available, or before money is made available to show the return on investment (ROI) for SHE projects? We all know that in reality "production comes first” and without production we would have no employment. This does not mean that employers do not care about the welfare of their employees, but when finances are tight often becomes harder to justify SHE projects.
This presentation addresses some common issues facing the SHE Professional while attempting to integrate the SHE functions into the core business. This includes:
• Identifying and using core business drivers for leverage
• Establishing a vision and Strategy that is aligned with the business direction
• Selling and marketing this vision throughout the organization
• Providing leadership within the organization to create business opportunities
• Building real business metrics and communication strategies
• Measuring and communicating the results
Ways to Make Business Intelligence Work for Your Small BusinessSpiceworks
In this first 60-minute webinar in the series, Spiceworks and CDW team up to provide answers to your questions on business intelligence - a subject that's becoming increasingly important to small businesses.
Have you ever wondered how search works while visiting an e-commerce site, internal website, or searching through other types of online resources? Look no further than this informative session on the ways that taxonomies help end-users navigate the internet! Hear from taxonomists and other information professionals who have first-hand experience creating and working with taxonomies that aid in navigation, search, and discovery across a range of disciplines.
Making AI Behave: Using Knowledge Domains to Produce Useful, Trustworthy ResultsAccess Innovations, Inc.
In today's highly charged atmosphere of anxiety and anticipation about AI, and especially LLMs,
one of the biggest concerns is how to ensure that it returns accurate results (meaning both true
and pertinent to its audience). This is particularly important to scholarly, scientific, and other
technical organizations, whose constituents are often in very specific domains, such as
medicine, engineering, history, biology, chemistry, etc. One extremely useful tool to incorporate in an AI-based process in such cases is a comprehensive and well-structured knowledge domain which is based on a controlled vocabulary.
Smart Submit and Client Support
Michael Millar, Junior Software Developer, and Frank Coates, Client Support Manager
Get a peek at the new and improved Smart Submit and learn about new, easier ways to contact the support team at Access Innovations.
How a Good Taxonomy Can Provide Valuable Business Insights
Kristen Monahan, Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Kristen is a business analyst and she won’t be talking about the PLOS taxonomy but rather how she uses that taxonomy to drill down into the massive amount of content, metadata, and usage and process data that is PLOS for deep, detailed analysis and to drive business decisions. Much of this work involves trend analysis. For example, trend analysis of submissions can look at the time it takes from submission to decision by subject (narrow subjects like Covid, broad subjects like biotechnology), or by institution, or by country, etc. to see not just the overall big picture but where in their submission and peer review workflows the bottlenecks might be. A trend analysis of topics over time can prompt them to issue a call for papers for a topic they think needs to be better covered–and then look at both short-term and long-term trends resulting from that call to papers. Their taxonomy doesn’t just make their content smarter–it makes how they publish that content smarter too.
Editor and Peer Reviewer Assignments Using Data Harmony
Andrew Smeall, Hindawi Publishing
Andrew will show how Hindawi, an open access publisher, applies their taxonomy to make editor and reviewer assignments for incoming submissions to their journals.
Cloud Deployment of Data Harmony
Jeffrey Gordon, Lead Developer, Access Innovations, Inc.
Jeffrey will describe the cloud deployment of the Data Harmony software.
Marjorie M. K. Hlava, President, Chair of the Board, and Chief Scientist, Access Innovations, Inc.
During this annual highlight of the DHUG meetings, Margie will discuss the exciting new changes and additions to the Data Harmony software. She will be joined by some members of our software development team to talk about specific initiatives we have worked on over the past year.
Access Innovations and Atypon: Beyond Content Tagging
Hong Zhou and Gerasimos Razis, Atypon
Gerasimos and Hong will discuss the changes to the Atypon platform since DHUG 2020.
Getting to the Point: Using AI and Taxonomies to Craft Meta -Titles
Travis Hicks, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
Looking to better leverage SEO and include key terms in the url construct for research abstracts, ASCO is working with Access Innovations to evaluate how to programmatically create short titles for abstracts. The idea is to index titles against existing taxonomies as a way of producing a short title that succinctly identified what an abstract is about for purposes of constructing a new url configuration. Travis will discuss the need, challenges, and early results of the project.
Expanding the Use of MAIstro at ASCE
Xi Van Fleet, American Society for Civil Engineers
Using MAIstro, ASCE created the subject/topic taxonomies for their publications to enhance content discovery and business insight. After achieving their primary goal, they have been expanding its use for other applications.
Lessons Learned From Building a Taxonomy and Indexing 140 Years of Content
Michael Darr, Project Manager, D33 – American Chemical Society Pubs IT
Michael will talk about the things they would do differently if they were to build a new taxonomy and index a legacy file, and the things they did right the first time.
Bill’s talk is entitled “WHAT’S IN A NAME? How Kew helps drug regulators disambiguate the messy welter of medicinal plant names to shore up regulation and save lives”. It’s really eye-opening to realize how complicated and imprecise names can get, with multiple scientific, pharmaceutical and popular names for the same thing or with one name used for completely different things.
This has real-world consequences. For example, the EU mistakenly banned a useful plant we use every day when intending to ban a poisonous one because of a naming problem. How Kew is using semantic and taxonomic tools and technologies to bring order to this complexity (I almost said chaos) is really fascinating. They’re also helping to disambiguate nomenclature and provide links to authoritative information for botanical terms for use in journal articles, among other things.
Opendatabay - Open Data Marketplace.pptxOpendatabay
Opendatabay.com unlocks the power of data for everyone. Open Data Marketplace fosters a collaborative hub for data enthusiasts to explore, share, and contribute to a vast collection of datasets.
First ever open hub for data enthusiasts to collaborate and innovate. A platform to explore, share, and contribute to a vast collection of datasets. Through robust quality control and innovative technologies like blockchain verification, opendatabay ensures the authenticity and reliability of datasets, empowering users to make data-driven decisions with confidence. Leverage cutting-edge AI technologies to enhance the data exploration, analysis, and discovery experience.
From intelligent search and recommendations to automated data productisation and quotation, Opendatabay AI-driven features streamline the data workflow. Finding the data you need shouldn't be a complex. Opendatabay simplifies the data acquisition process with an intuitive interface and robust search tools. Effortlessly explore, discover, and access the data you need, allowing you to focus on extracting valuable insights. Opendatabay breaks new ground with a dedicated, AI-generated, synthetic datasets.
Leverage these privacy-preserving datasets for training and testing AI models without compromising sensitive information. Opendatabay prioritizes transparency by providing detailed metadata, provenance information, and usage guidelines for each dataset, ensuring users have a comprehensive understanding of the data they're working with. By leveraging a powerful combination of distributed ledger technology and rigorous third-party audits Opendatabay ensures the authenticity and reliability of every dataset. Security is at the core of Opendatabay. Marketplace implements stringent security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular vulnerability assessments, to safeguard your data and protect your privacy.
Techniques to optimize the pagerank algorithm usually fall in two categories. One is to try reducing the work per iteration, and the other is to try reducing the number of iterations. These goals are often at odds with one another. Skipping computation on vertices which have already converged has the potential to save iteration time. Skipping in-identical vertices, with the same in-links, helps reduce duplicate computations and thus could help reduce iteration time. Road networks often have chains which can be short-circuited before pagerank computation to improve performance. Final ranks of chain nodes can be easily calculated. This could reduce both the iteration time, and the number of iterations. If a graph has no dangling nodes, pagerank of each strongly connected component can be computed in topological order. This could help reduce the iteration time, no. of iterations, and also enable multi-iteration concurrency in pagerank computation. The combination of all of the above methods is the STICD algorithm. [sticd] For dynamic graphs, unchanged components whose ranks are unaffected can be skipped altogether.
Adjusting primitives for graph : SHORT REPORT / NOTESSubhajit Sahu
Graph algorithms, like PageRank Compressed Sparse Row (CSR) is an adjacency-list based graph representation that is
Multiply with different modes (map)
1. Performance of sequential execution based vs OpenMP based vector multiply.
2. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector multiply.
Sum with different storage types (reduce)
1. Performance of vector element sum using float vs bfloat16 as the storage type.
Sum with different modes (reduce)
1. Performance of sequential execution based vs OpenMP based vector element sum.
2. Performance of memcpy vs in-place based CUDA based vector element sum.
3. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (memcpy).
4. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (in-place).
Sum with in-place strategies of CUDA mode (reduce)
1. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (in-place).
As Europe's leading economic powerhouse and the fourth-largest hashtag#economy globally, Germany stands at the forefront of innovation and industrial might. Renowned for its precision engineering and high-tech sectors, Germany's economic structure is heavily supported by a robust service industry, accounting for approximately 68% of its GDP. This economic clout and strategic geopolitical stance position Germany as a focal point in the global cyber threat landscape.
In the face of escalating global tensions, particularly those emanating from geopolitical disputes with nations like hashtag#Russia and hashtag#China, hashtag#Germany has witnessed a significant uptick in targeted cyber operations. Our analysis indicates a marked increase in hashtag#cyberattack sophistication aimed at critical infrastructure and key industrial sectors. These attacks range from ransomware campaigns to hashtag#AdvancedPersistentThreats (hashtag#APTs), threatening national security and business integrity.
🔑 Key findings include:
🔍 Increased frequency and complexity of cyber threats.
🔍 Escalation of state-sponsored and criminally motivated cyber operations.
🔍 Active dark web exchanges of malicious tools and tactics.
Our comprehensive report delves into these challenges, using a blend of open-source and proprietary data collection techniques. By monitoring activity on critical networks and analyzing attack patterns, our team provides a detailed overview of the threats facing German entities.
This report aims to equip stakeholders across public and private sectors with the knowledge to enhance their defensive strategies, reduce exposure to cyber risks, and reinforce Germany's resilience against cyber threats.
DHUG 2017 - Understanding ROI Just Enough to Get Your Project Funded
1. Understanding ROI Just
Enough to Get (or Keep)
Your Project Funded
Heather Kotula
VP, Marketing and Communications
hkotula@accessinn.com
505-998-0800 x123
2. Poor project planning
A weak business case
Ineffective or insufficient management
support
Why Do Projects Fail?
3. Benefits of the proposed change
Communicating those benefits
Understanding is the beginning of approving.
André Gide
Building a Business Case:
First Things First
4. Business problem or opportunity
Benefits
Risk
Costs
Likely technical solutions
Timescale
Impact on operations
Organizational capability
Assess This
5. What is your goal?
What’s stopping you from reaching the goal?
How much change is needed to overcome the
problem?
Are you certain this will solve the problem?
Ask Yourself
6. Brief and convey only the bare essentials
Interesting, clear and concise
Free of conjecture
Light on jargon and buzzwords
Your vision of the future
Clear about the value and benefits
Consistent and easy to read
Your Business Case Should Be
9. Measure To Manage
Measure what's important
Publish your metrics and benchmarks
Reward people for exceeding their goals
And then keep tuning the metrics
The Ol’ Business Adage
10. Metrics are used to track all areas of business
KPIs – Key Performance Indicators – are used
to target and track critical areas of
performance
Metrics vs. KPIs
11. Metrics Matter
Metrics are a concrete way of defining what a
[knowledge management or content
management] project will achieve, and whether
it met those goals.
James Robertson, StepTwo
12. What Should Metrics Include?
Targets to be set
Success to be assessed
ROI to be estimated
Ongoing viability to be tracked
Lessons to be learned in the process
13. Make Metrics Good
The most powerful metrics are those that directly
measure the desired business outcomes.
14. Expressing Metrics
DO SAY
Improve the rate of
product cross-selling
by front-line staff
Improve the average
number of intranet
hits to 30,000 per day
by June
DON’T SAY
Deliver information
more effectively
Improve intranet
usage by staff
19. For example
Original cost of investment is $50
Increased sales is $200
ROI is 3 times the original cost
20. ROI, Traditionally Speaking
Calculated retrospectively
From existing accounting records, which provides
for transparency of the numbers
Real money – money invested and money
returned from the investment
21. Traditional Cost Components of ROI
Infrastructure – software, hardware, hosting
Labor – Salaries for internal personnel, Consultant
Fees
Training – internal personnel training by third
parties, end-user training
22. Traditional Returns Components of ROI
Cost savings
Cost avoidance
Increased revenue
Revenue enhancement
Revenue protection
23. Required investment
Payback period
Estimates
Assumptions
Project risk (probability of success or failure)
What You Should Quantify
24. Alignment of an initiative with business
strategy
Interdependence of projects and systems
from an overarching view
Effectiveness of the system (qualitative
measure of its “goodness”)
Efficiency of the system (what it does per
dollar invested)
ROI usually fails to address:
25. …ROI is designed to assess
profitability or financial efficiency
…and therefore has limitations.
And…
26. …in order to calculate an ROI–like measure for
information infrastructure investments, we have to
address intangible benefits.
Therefore…
27. Costs of upsetting customers
Costs of failure due to inappropriate system or
faulty implementation
Incompatibility with other systems leading to
unexpected costs of software amendments,
tailoring, and maintenance
Costs of errors due to lack of experience in
using new system
Intangible Costs Might Include:
28. Costs of losing staff morale
Costs of losing a competitive edge
Costs of declining company image
Loss of investment in prior or legacy systems
Temporary drop in productivity during the
change
Intangible Costs Might Include:
29. Better information
more timely information
more accurate information
faster access to data
uniform information (well-formed data)
Intangible Benefits Can Include:
30. Better use of information
strategic and organizational planning
resource control
asset deployment
flexibility and transparency
Intangible Benefits Can Include:
31. Increased productivity
Time savings
Happier staff
Increased job satisfaction
Happier customers
Improved findability and discovery
Better corporate image
Intangible Benefits Can Include:
32. How do you quantify intangible
costs and benefits?
33. Total Economic Impact (TEI) from Forrester
Research Inc.
Business Value of IT (ITBV) program developed by
Intel Corporation
Other Metrics For Measuring Value
34. Methodology developed by Forrester
Research, Inc.
“When discussing the project, use this entire
sentence to reinforce the project and its
value.” ChipGliedman
Total Economic Impact (TEI)
35. “We will be doing ______ to
make ________ better, as
measured by _______, which
is worth ________.”
TEI - Forrester Research Inc.
36. “We will be doing [THIS PROJECT OR
ACTIVITY] to make [PAIN POINT] better,
as measured by [METRIC(S)], which is
worth [ESTIMATED PAYBACK].”
TEI - Forrester Research Inc.
37. User productivity, as measured by increased
capacity
Program effectiveness toward market growth
Organizational efficiency
Customer satisfaction, in terms of additional sales
to current customers or decreases in account
turnover
Quantifying Benefits with TEI
38. Developed in 2002 at Intel Corporation
Business Value Dials (Indicators)
Business Value of IT (ITBV)
43. “Change what you think and say before you
change anything else, and focus your comments
always on business outcomes.”
RichardHunter
Change Happens
44. “Show the value of IT as an investment in business
performance.”RichardHunter
Show Off
45. What’s the Final Answer?
A. I can use Google to find the answer
B. My biggest competitor has the answer
C. My organization has a unique answer
D. Jabin has the answer but he won’t tell me
We’ll help you with project planning so that this doesn’t happen
Can you answer these questions quickly? Do you have evidence that supports your answers?
The executive summary will let your reader – likely the person who will approve the project – know if they want to keep reading. Write this last, after you have done the detail work on the other sections. It should include a brief summary of the project and your recommendation
The Introduction should include the scope of the project, the market context, and a financial discussion
The Analysis includes assumptions, costs including actual and opportunity, benefits and risks, and other options
The conclusion should include your recommendation (again) and the next steps to be taken – action items!
This does not have to be a ponderous tome suitable for bedtime reading. You want something to happen – i.e., your project to be approved – so make it a compelling argument that is not too long but still interesting to read
You can’t manage what you don’t measure
To be effective, business metrics should be compared to established benchmarks or business objectives. This provides valuable context for the values used in the metric and allows business users to better act on the information they are viewing. For instance, $20M sales in Q4 sounds like an impressive figure; however, if you're Boeing Aircraft, this figure would have you contemplating filing for bankruptcy.
KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity in which it engages. Often success is simply the repeated, periodic achievement of some levels of operational goal (e.g. zero defects, 10/10 customer satisfaction, etc.), and sometimes success is defined in terms of making progress toward strategic goals
Targets to be setMetrics provide clearly defined goals and scope for projects, allowing for more concrete design, planning and implementation. Metrics state “this is what we plan to do, and this is the benefit it will have”.
Success to be assessedMetrics provide very specific ‘success criteria’ for projects, allowing the outcomes to be assessed at the end of implementation.
ROI to be estimatedIn the current times of tight IT budgets, there is an expectation that projects will deliver quantifiable benefits. This is often defined in terms of ‘return on investment’ (ROI). Without strong metrics, estimating ROI is little more than guesswork.
Ongoing viability to be trackedMetrics continue to provide value beyond initial implementation. Appropriate measures will quickly highlight issues, allowing them to be resolved before they grow or spread.
Lessons to be learntBy providing a concrete way of assessing the success (or lack of) various approaches, a greater understanding can be gained. This can then be applied when establishing new initiatives.
In short, metrics can be of tangible benefit both at the early stages of a project, and throughout its life.
These days, most labor-intensive operations can be replaced with automation, and you need to recognize as you grow the business when the cost of automation is justified. At some point, the return on investment (ROI) of more computer systems, and automated manufacturing operations, is well worth the cost and time to change.
This is the basic formula for calculating return on investment.
For example, if I spend $50 on my investment, and I get increased sales of $200, then my ROI is 3: $200 is my gain from investment, minus the $50 cost of investment equals $150. $150 divided by my $50 original cost of investment is 3 times. This could also be expressed as a percentage, which in this case would be 300%.
Traditional ROI makes people feel good because Numbers look objective, so they inspire confidence more than opinions do
These are tangible costs – there is paperwork somewhere with these dollar figures.
These are tangible benefits or gains – things that can be measured in dollar values in a reasonably straightforward way. While these might not all come with a clear, easy to access paper trail that defines the exact dollar figures, the numbers can be calculated using data from various sources: for cost avoidance and the potential of not having to hire additional personnel, we can access salary information pertinent to the position in question, or we can track additional income from sales of new products.
A few of those characteristics could be:
Proceed with caution! If you include some of these things in your calculations, you’ll probably have a better ROI that is backed with a better story.
And this is very true for information infrastructure investments which have so few tangible gains.
So consequently …
Assessing the value of intangibles is fraught with danger. Measuring the intangibles can be tricky. What is the cost of upsetting customers as you make a transition, or ask them to learn something new? Do they get frustrated and walk away for a day, or do they cancel entirely, thereby reducing revenue? What if someone on your staff clicks in the wrong place and makes your taxonomy into a flat list?
Downtime when switching systems, for example, or the staff time spent learning the new system, or incomplete or inaccurate porting of data to the new system are all intangible costs that can – and should – be included in your calculations.
But intangibles aren’t all bad! That legacy system that you replaced had limitations, and the new one provides opportunities.
Increased productivity can be calculated based on the reduction of personnel, or based on a few minutes per day per staff member. The first can be viewed as tangible, the second as intangible, depending on the context. Context can mean the difference between tangible and intangible.
not all factors are the same for every organization or every project within one organization. How do you calculate the gain from better information? Or more timely, accurate, or uniform information? There isn’t a formula for that that I have found, and if it did exist it would vary widely among organizations
ROI isn’t the only option for evaluating your information infrastructure investment. Some of the others are
Total Economic Impact Methodology. Gliedman, Chip, The Foundation of Sound Technology Investment: The Total Economic Impact™ Methodology”, Planning Assumption, September 26, 2003, www.gigaweb.com
He says, “When discussing the project, use this entire sentence to reinforce the project and its value.”
For example, We will be implementing Data Harmony’s MAIstro software (next slide!)
Quantifying the benefits derived from an IT decision must be made in light of an individual organization’s goals. With this alignment, the contribution of IT can be measured in such terms as the following:
For example,
Uses a set of financial measurements of business value called Business Value dials. There are about 20 of these, not all of which are used in every evaluation. They are things like Employee Productivity, Capital Hardware and Software Avoidance, Risk Avoidance, Time-to-Market, Open New Markets, Optimize Existing Markets, Direct Income, even Scrap Reduction.
Exploration, Stage One, Understanding Customer needs. If you are using this method, Ask yourself How does this project contribute to patron results or help address the patron’s needs?
The most important features of a business case are:
They must promise benefits for the organization.
They should have a way of measuring or evaluating whether the promised benefits have been achieved.
They must be visibly aligned with the goals of your senior management.
They must generate trust, confidence and commitment.
This makes them political as well as logical tools. You must never forget that we are dealing with human beings as well as accountants.
Gartner analyst Richard Hunter has a great opening question for presentations on the business value of IT investments:
“What is the value of an exercise machine?” He explains that the benefits – the value – are in the performance of the user. What are some other possible examples or analogies that we can draw? A new car? It loses value the minute you drive away. How can you apply that to your ROI calculations?
Gartner analyst Richard Hunter also says “Change…………”
Talk about what the business does and how IT can make it better instead of talking about the system specifications or what the system does. Don’t tell them how you make the sausage, tell them how delicious and satisfying the end product will be.