Write 5 page essay on the topic Understanding Business Benefit Management: Towards an iterative framework for Realizing and Measuring business value of technology investments.Download file to see prev

Write 5 page essay on the topic Understanding Business Benefit Management: Towards an iterative framework for Realizing and Measuring business value of technology investments.

Understanding Business Benefit Management: Towards an iterative framework for Realizing and Measuring business value of technology investments

It means that business managers must not only necessarily decide on IS/IT projects and priorities, but also on delivering benefits. This is so because inability to realise the benefits of specific IT investments leads to reduced organisational understanding of the business value that can be provided by IT, which then results in the lack of consistency of investment choices. In turn, this leads to limitation or inability of identifying the means through which IT can be best utilised as a tool to improve performance or support new strategies. Benefits management approaches take pride in managing the achievement of benefits. However, they have few explicit means to link these processes to existing decision making, which further investments require for modifications. Thus, it is necessary to integrate evaluation and benefits management together into a seamless approach with regard to IT in organisations. Benefits management identifies potential benefits, planning, modeling, assigning responsibilities, and realising them as a result of investing in business change. Its central focus is the determination of potential benefits. It is commonly carried out as a key aspect of programme management. otherwise, it must function in the framework of a management methodology. . It also interlaces with performance management, where it enables achievement of outcomes. (Sofroniou, 2004). 1.2 Research Statement Understanding business benefit management and integrating this important process in the enterprise investment portfolio management guarantees that an organization achieves her technology innovation/project objectives. 1.3 Research Objectives This research is centered on answering two questions confronting current organisations, which are: (1) To determine if there is realisation of anticipated economic benefits of investments in information technology. (2) To provide a framework for ensuring that the above takes place. 2. Literature Review Pepperd, Ward, and Daniel (2007) provide a good insight for understanding business benefits management through their discussion of the subject from investments in information technology. They claim that most organisations are engaged in implementing IT technology rather than realising the expected business benefits of this technology. This results in non-realisation of benefits despite the technical success of a project. The authors present an approach to identify, plan, and manage the delivery of benefits. The benefits management approach thus constructed starts with a task requiring business managers and IT professionals to answer a set of questions about a potential IT investment. Important areas of investment are purported to be answered by these questions, namely: improvements in target performance, the ways in which the business can function differently, and enabling IT capabilities (Pepperd et al., 2007). Money and Twite (1995) posit that a reason for the importance provided to IT benefits management is the increasing level IT expenditure in most organisations. There is insistence on the part of top management that increased attention be given to the economic aspect of information systems (IS), thereby leading to an enormous demand for a comprehensive metric for information technology.