Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments

Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments

Released January 2006
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9780470094631

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Book description

This book considers the topic of achieving value from IT from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It is based on extensive research which produced a comprehensive understanding and analysis of the issues involved and innovative new approaches that addressed those issues plus considerable practical application, in a wide range of organisations of the ideas, processes, tools and techniques that were developed. The book describes how IS/IT investments can be aligned accurately with organisational strategy and how the approach and ‘tool-kit’ can be used by business managers and IS/IT specialists to identify the benefits available from different types of investments in a variety of organisational contexts. It describes how business cases can be developed that enable  the benefits to be planned for and then realised through techniques and processes that overcome the organisational barriers that often prevent successful implementation. It also considers the strengths and limitations of existing methods, and shows how the approach can be integrated with best practice in the areas of project and change programme management. The book concludes by explaining how the key concepts in the approach have been extended and adapted to improve strategy development and decision making as well as an  organisation’s ability  to implement its strategy successfully.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. About the Authors
  3. Series Preface
  4. Preface
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. 1. The Challenge of IS/IT Investments
    1. 1.1. The Development of IS/IT within Organizations
    2. 1.2. The New Economy
    3. 1.3. Productivity Gains from IS/IT
    4. 1.4. The Generic Benefits of IT
    5. 1.5. Tangible and Intangible Benefits
    6. 1.6. Emergent Benefits
    7. 1.7. The Disbenefits of IS/IT
    8. 1.8. Net Benefits: The Measure of IS Success
    9. 1.9. Current Investment Appraisal Approaches
    10. 1.10. Limitations of Current Appraisal Methods
    11. 1.11. The Need for a Fresh Approach: Benefits Management
    12. 1.12. The Importance of a Common Language: Information Systems and Information Technology
    13. 1.13. Summary
  7. 2. Understanding the Strategic Context
    1. 2.1. The Competitive Forces and Resource-Based Views of Strategy
    2. 2.2. Ends, Ways, Means
    3. 2.3. PEST Analysis
    4. 2.4. Industry Attractiveness and Competitive Forces Analysis
    5. 2.5. External Value Chain Analysis
    6. 2.6. Internal Value Chain Analysis
    7. 2.7. Balancing the External and Internal Contexts: The Dimensions of Competence
    8. 2.8. Linking Business, IS and IT Strategies
    9. 2.9. Balancing the Portfolio of Investments: The Applications Portfolio
    10. 2.10. Organizational Information Competences
    11. 2.11. The Challenge of Implementation
    12. 2.12. Summary
  8. 3. The Foundations of Benefits Management
    1. 3.1. The Need for Another Process for Managing IS/IT Investments?
    2. 3.2. The Origins of the Benefits Management Approach and Process
    3. 3.3. An Overview of the Benefits Management Process
    4. 3.4. Identifying and Structuring the Benefits
    5. 3.5. Planning Benefits Realization
    6. 3.6. Executing the Benefits Plan
    7. 3.7. Reviewing and Evaluating the Results
    8. 3.8. Establishing the Potential for Further Benefits
    9. 3.9. What is Different about this Approach?
    10. 3.10. Summary
  9. 4. Establishing the Why, What and How
    1. 4.1. Why: Identifying Business and Organizational Drivers
    2. 4.2. Strategic Drivers, Dimensions of Competence and the Nature of Change
    3. 4.3. Establishing Investment Objectives
    4. 4.4. Linking the Investment Objectives to Drivers
    5. 4.5. What: The Business Benefits
    6. 4.6. How: The Benefits Dependency Network
    7. 4.7. Measurement and Ownership
    8. 4.8. The Nature of Benefit and Change Ownership
    9. 4.9. Benefit and Change Templates
    10. 4.10. Worked Example: Improved Control within a Food-Processing Organization
    11. 4.11. Summary
  10. 5. Building the Business Case
    1. 5.1. Arguing the Value of the Investment
    2. 5.2. A Structure for Analysing and Describing the Benefits
    3. 5.3. Observable Benefits
    4. 5.4. Measurable Benefits
    5. 5.5. Quantifying the Benefits: The Major Challenge
    6. 5.6. Financial Benefits
    7. 5.7. Cost Reductions
    8. 5.8. Revenue Increases
    9. 5.9. Project Cost Assessment
    10. 5.10. Variations in Benefits and Changes across the Application Portfolio
    11. 5.11. Risk Assessment
    12. 5.12. Completing the Business Case
    13. 5.13. Summary
  11. 6. Stakeholder and Change Management
    1. 6.1. Assessing the Feasibility of Achieving the Benefits: Stakeholder Analysis
    2. 6.2. Stakeholder Analysis Techniques
    3. 6.3. From Analysis to Action
    4. 6.4. Completing the Benefits Plan
    5. 6.5. Approaches to Managing Change
    6. 6.6. Matching the Management Approach and Stakeholder Behaviours
    7. 6.7. The Nature of IT-Enabled Change Management: Is it Different?
    8. 6.8. Alternative Change Management Strategies
    9. 6.9. Summary
  12. 7. Implementing a Benefits Management Approach
    1. 7.1. Rationales for Introducing Benefits Management
    2. 7.2. Initiating and Managing a Benefits-Driven Investment
    3. 7.3. The Project Sponsor
    4. 7.4. The Business Project Manager
    5. 7.5. The First Workshop
    6. 7.6. The Second Workshop
    7. 7.7. Inclusion of the Benefits Plan in the Management of the Project
    8. 7.8. Evaluating the Results and Establishing Potential for Further Benefits
    9. 7.9. Monitoring the Benefits after Implementation
    10. 7.10. Fit with other Methodologies
    11. 7.11. Summary
  13. 8. The Importance of Context
    1. 8.1. Factors to Take into Account
      1. 8.1.1. Generic Benefits
    2. 8.2. Different Types of Organization
    3. 8.3. The Public Sector
      1. 8.3.1. Imposed Drivers
      2. 8.3.2. Many Stakeholders
    4. 8.4. Small Businesses
    5. 8.5. Multiunit Businesses: Replicated Deployments
    6. 8.6. Variations across the Applications Portfolio
    7. 8.7. Problem Based: Key Operational and Support Applications
    8. 8.8. Innovation Based: Strategic and High Potential Applications
    9. 8.9. Different Application Types
    10. 8.10. E-Commerce and E-Business
    11. 8.11. Information Management
    12. 8.12. Customer Relationship Management Systems
    13. 8.13. Enterprise Resource Planning Systems
    14. 8.14. Enterprise Portals
    15. 8.15. Infrastructure Investments
    16. 8.16. Non-IT Projects
    17. 8.17. Different IS/IT Supply Arrangements
    18. 8.18. External Supply: Outsourcing and Offshoring
    19. 8.19. Summary
  14. 9. From Projects to Programmes to Portfolios
    1. 9.1. Defining Programmes
    2. 9.2. Types of Programme: Planned and Emergent
    3. 9.3. Programme Dependency Networks
    4. 9.4. The Management of Programmes
    5. 9.5. Governance of the Investment Portfolio
    6. 9.6. Setting Priorities
    7. 9.7. The Applications Portfolio for Priority Setting
    8. 9.8. Links to Drivers
    9. 9.9. Including Emergent Investments in the Management of the Portfolio
    10. 9.10. Benefits Management 'Lite'
    11. 9.11. Summary
  15. 10. Creating a Better Future
    1. 10.1. The Continuing Challenge of IS/IT Investments
    2. 10.2. Characteristics of the Benefits Management Approach
    3. 10.3. The Value of the Process
    4. 10.4. Going Further: Using Benefits Management to Formulate and Implement Strategy
    5. 10.5. The Purpose of Strategies: To Deliver Benefits to Stakeholders
    6. 10.6. Incorporating Benefits Management into Strategic Thinking
    7. 10.7. Examples of Benefits-Driven Strategies
    8. 10.8. Future Trends in IS/IT and their Implications for Benefits Management
    9. 10.9. Degree of Embeddedness: Pervasive and Nomadic Computing
    10. 10.10. Having it All: Productivity and Agility Benefits from IS/IT
    11. 10.11. A Final Word or Two
  16. Glossary
  17. References

Product information

  • Title: Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: January 2006
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9780470094631