The business impact of IT investments

Determining whether your company is getting enough value from its IT investments is one of the most difficult things to measure. Making sure that you're measuring accurately means taking advantage of benefit realization--the proactive forecasting, management and measurement of the financial, operational and strategic benefits being realized. For effective benefit realization, start by building selectively, piloting with a particular business unit and setting initiatives. Next, secure business co-ownership by ensuring that senior leaders collaborate in choosing IT measurements and soliciting input from corporate finance. Regularly review and adjust performance measurements to prevent them from getting stale or obsolete. Demand business accountability for funding and delivering IT results. Be selective with benefit realization metrics, focusing on a few performance measures instead of a long list. And make sure you know what results really matter. Also, use metrics that are business-relevant and matter to stakeholders, and make sure to measure the benefits of the benefit realization process itself.

Read more about benefit realization:
- read the article at Optimize