Gardner, Christopher

The Valuation of Information Technology : A Guide for Strategy Development, Valuation, and Financial Planning

The Valuation of Information Technology Information technology has many well known success stories, such as America Online, @Home, and Windows(r) 95. However, there have also been far too many failures. The reason for this is that the effect of information technology on a company s shareholder value has been unpredictable. Lacking a method to analyze the value of an IT system, managers are forced to make decisions based on fragmented data and guesswork, which often prove to be faulty. Now, it is possible for you to avoid the same mistakes with your information system choices. The Valuation of Information Technology demonstrates how to assess the shareholder value created by a system before it is built. Top management consultant Christopher Gardner provides a unique framework for analyzing the value of an IT system in a quantitative fashion. This solution oriented book walks you through every aspect of evaluating an IT system for your business, from concept to shareholder value. Gardner lays out a method that will allow you to not only determine the contribution of a system to shareholder value, but also guide the activities involved in its construction so they create value. Integrating techniques from market research, computer science, and corporate finance, Gardner shows how you can maximize your chances for success in applying information technology. The book is replete with real world examples from such companies as AT&T, @Home, and Time Warner. These field tested solutions will help you tackle various practical problems, improve your corporate decision making, and make more productive use of capital and labor by avoiding investment mistakes. Written from the shareholder value perspective, The Valuation of Information Technology: Explains step by step how to estimate the shareholder value created by an IT system Describes how the analytical methods provided are applied in practice to get answers, with Internet examples Emphasizes ease of use with direct language and liberal use of tables and figures Shows how any type of IT system can be evaluated using the techniques discussed Clear and accessible, The Valuation of Information Technology is both a management and analytical tool for developing a successful information system.