MODELING AND MEASURING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Determining the 'business value' of information technology (IT) requires managers to choose performance measures which are well-suited to capturing the economic impacts of the application they are evaluating. In this paper, the authors discuss a promising approach for bridging the gap between a theory for rational decisions and management practice in evaluating investments in IT: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The referent discipline for the discussion is production economics, and the authors review basic concepts concerning performance measurement, efficiency, productivity and economic contribution or value-added from an economist's perspective. DEA's promise lies in its ability to handle multiple input and output production environments and its management action orientation. As an illustration of this potential, DEA is applied to assessing the performance of an automated teller machine (ATM) network, an IT which creates economic impacts at various organizational levels of a commercial bank.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Evaluation of project for formation and development of customer relationships information support

Запропоновано математичний вираз для розрахунку повної вартості володіння інформаційної системи управління взаємовідносинами з клієнтами, яка передбачає чотири групи витрат. Деталізовано та систематизовано складові витрат, що формують повну вартість володіння такого проекту. Представлено результати розрахунків повної вартості володіння інформаційною системою управління взаємовідносинами з клієнтами для різних за розміром машинобудівних підприємств і різних постачальників CRM-рішень.The issue of customer value price growth and customer service level is gaining more weight in both scientific publications and practice. Most companies realize that the introduction of so-called CRM-systems adds to the development of positive experience in company-customer communication that, in turn, has a positive impact on the company brand value and increase of the number of loyal customers. The projects of improving and developing information systems to facilitate the interaction with clients require considerable investments, and many managers are not ready to take the risk with such spending without proper grounding of their efficiency. At the same time, the already existing theoretical and methodological basis in this field provides no opportunity to adequately assess investments in CRM-systems and determine their efficiency. The issue of assessing investment profitability in information technologies has been studied by many scholars. However, the approaches offered differ considerably, as their basis is formed using various indicators. That is why this issue is rather controversial. Thus, the objective of this article is to research and improve the existing approaches to evaluation of the efficiency of projects for formation and development of information support for customer relationship. The method of the total cost of ownership definition is usually used to select an appropriate information system configuration within restrained budget. It enables to assess the structure of costs, related to formation and usage of all elements of the information system controlling the customer relationships for the time of its life cycle, as well as compare alternative costs using the price criteria. The traditional components for calculation of the total cost of ownership comprise the costs at the stage of software purchase, implementation, functioning, servicing and replacement

Theory and Practice of Data Citation

Citations are the cornerstone of knowledge propagation and the primary means of assessing the quality of research, as well as directing investments in science. Science is increasingly becoming "data-intensive", where large volumes of data are collected and analyzed to discover complex patterns through simulations and experiments, and most scientific reference works have been replaced by online curated datasets. Yet, given a dataset, there is no quantitative, consistent and established way of knowing how it has been used over time, who contributed to its curation, what results have been yielded or what value it has. The development of a theory and practice of data citation is fundamental for considering data as first-class research objects with the same relevance and centrality of traditional scientific products. Many works in recent years have discussed data citation from different viewpoints: illustrating why data citation is needed, defining the principles and outlining recommendations for data citation systems, and providing computational methods for addressing specific issues of data citation. The current panorama is many-faceted and an overall view that brings together diverse aspects of this topic is still missing. Therefore, this paper aims to describe the lay of the land for data citation, both from the theoretical (the why and what) and the practical (the how) angle.Comment: 24 pages, 2 tables, pre-print accepted in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 201

Invest for Impact: Maximizing the Impact of W.K. Kellogg Foundations Mission Driven Investment Portfolio

Impact investing is an exciting, fast-growing field that holds promise to generate both social and financial value. However, its full potential has yet to be released. For that to happen, impact investors would need to adopt a systems perspective when allocating capital. Only by adopting a systems perspective, investors can catalyse change that has the potential toproduce disruptive change.The imperative to disrupt and catalyse positive change, has guided the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) to expand their innovative work to deploy more of their endowment for impact through the creation of their Mission Driven Investment portfolio. The Invest for Impact Framework, introduced in this report, is a management and governance tool created by KKS Advisors on behalf of WKKF and seeks to help mission driven investors in four ways. First, as an assessment tool for systems-level impacts duringinvestment due diligence. Second, as a diagnostic tool post investment to understand portfolio level interactions and synergies across investments. Third, as a monitoring tool for assessing whether investees are delivering the expected impact. Fourth, as a collaboration tool where different teams working across investment and grant making teams could have a platform for cross-learning, information exchange and collaboration.While there are tremendous data deficiencies plaguing the field, we find promising pathways for aligning mission and investments with rigor. Therefore, the framework is evidence-based and research driven. It focuses on the assessment of the following four categories; alignment and evidence, measurement quality, scalability of impact and potential for disruption. We apply the framework in the case of three investees to verify and showcase its practicality and decision usefulness. This could not have been done without the help of the investees who provided us with value insights, data and their time.The framework can enable all types of mission-oriented investors to better weigh up alternative opportunities for impact in the marketplace. Although originally developed for WKKF's Mission Driven Investment Portfolio, the learnings and approach are designed to be applicable to any impact investor. We hope you will find it useful

Оцінка інвестиційної привабливості промислових підприємств

The article is devoted to methodological issues of assessing the investment attractiveness of industrial enterprises, based on the nature of investments and the goals of their initiators. Various methods for assessing the economic efficiency of investments in newly created, existing and reconstructed industrial enterprises are examined, and the conditions for their application are determined. The necessity of calculating the economic efficiency of direct investment as part of changing the entire production and economic system of the investor is justified. A structural and logical scheme of interaction between the potential investor and the investment object directly for the implementation of investment projects was proposed, taking into account the number of investments, type of investor and term of the investment. The authors also proposed a methodology that can be used by an investor to plan for increasing the investment attractiveness of an enterprise and a formula for calculating the coefficient of investment attractiveness of an enterprise.Стаття присвячена методологічним питанням оцінки інвестиційної привабливості промислових підприємств, виходячи з характеру інвестицій та цілей їх ініціаторів. Розглядаються різні методи оцінки економічної ефективності інвестицій у новостворені, існуючі та реконструйовані промислові підприємства та визначаються умови їх застосування. Обґрунтовано необхідність розрахунку економічної ефективності прямих інвестицій як частини зміни всієї виробничої та економічної системи інвестора. Запропонована структурно-логічна схема взаємодії між потенційним інвестором та об'єктом інвестування безпосередньо для реалізації інвестиційних проектів з урахуванням кількості інвестицій, типу інвестора та строку інвестування. Автори також запропонували методологію, за допомогою якої інвестор може планувати підвищення інвестиційної привабливості підприємства, та формулу для розрахунку коефіцієнта інвестиційної привабливості підприємства

The rationale of e-health evaluation: The case of NHS Direct

An important area of research is that of the evaluation of e-health services. A holistic e-health evaluation framework should address the aspects that are hampering healthcare services from embracing the full potential of information and communication technologies towards successful e-health initiatives. Towards building a holistic evaluation framework for e-health services, this paper is intended to examine the rationale of e-health evaluation, as the paper argues that this aspect should be addressed first in the development of such a framework. NHS Direct which is one of the largest e-health services in the world has been chosen to discuss and validate a set of evaluation rationales and their applicability in practice

E-Government evaluation factors: Citizen’s perspective

The e-government field is growing to a considerable size, both in its contents and position with respect to other research fields. The government to citizen segment of egovernment is taking the lead in terms of its importance and size. Like the evaluation of all other information systems initiatives, the evaluation of egovernments in both theory and practice has proved to be important but complex. The complexity of evaluation is mostly due to the multiple perspectives involved, the difficulties of quantifying benefits, and the social and technical context of use. The importance of e-government evaluation is due to the enormous investment of governments on delivering e-government services, and to the considerable pace of growing in the e-government field. However, despite the importance of the evaluation of e-government services, literature shows that e-government evaluation is still an immature area in terms of development and management. This work is part of a research effort that aims to develop a holistic evaluation framework for e-government systems. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the citizen’ perspective in evaluating e-government services, and present a set of evaluating factors that influence citizens’ utilization of e-government services. These evaluation factors can serve as part of an e-government evaluation framework. Moreover, the evaluation factors can also be used as means of providing valuable feedback for the planning of future egovernment initiatives

Venture capital investor behaviour in the backing of UK high technology firms : financial reporting and the level of investment

This paper is an empirical investigation into the ways in which venture capitalists value (and invest in) high technology firms, focusing on financial reporting, risk disclosure and intangible assets. It is based on questionnaire returns from UK investors in diverse sectors, ranging from biotechnology, through software/ computer services, to communications and medical services. This evidence is used to examine: (a) the usefulness of financial accounts; (b) the implications of technopole investment; (c) the extent of investor control over the investee's AIS; and (d) the role of investor opinion (e.g. on disclosure, due diligence and risk reporting) in determining the level of equity provision

A Framework to Assess Returns on Investments in the Dryland Systems of Northern Kenya

Governments need quantitative assessments of the outcomes of proposed investments so they can weigh the merits of each option. Without these, there is a risk that some proposed changes could in fact reduce rather than increase benefits to the economy and society. At present, there is no definitive framework for assessing the returns to Northern Kenya's predominantly pastoralist land use, nor any prediction of its returns under anticipated climate changes. There is therefore no possibility of comparing returns between this and any alternatives. Flagship projects planned to accelerate economic development in Northern Kenya include an international transport corridor, a resort city and an international airport. In addition, mineral deposits are being discovered, towns are growing across both arid and semi-arid areas, and land speculation is increasing. The county governments are faced with the task of prioritising investments which can do the most to improve living standards for local people. This paper is intended to stimulate and contribute to a discussion of how the returns on land-based investments in the drylands should be evaluated. It presents an assessment framework for weighing the total economic value of the ecosystem services provided by pastoral and mixed land-use systems under anticipated climate changes and variability. The proposed framework draws on contributions from previous research at IIED and by other research partners focusing on ecosystem service assessment in Northern Kenya and surrounding dry regions. The paper reviews the current state of knowledge on the returns from pastoral and other land uses in the region, identifies research gaps and highlights the next steps needed for implementing the framework

Situating the Next Generation of Impact Measurement and Evaluation for Impact Investing

In taking stock of the landscape, this paper promotes a convergence of methods, building from both the impact investment and evaluation fields.The commitment of impact investors to strengthen the process of generating evidence for their social returns alongside the evidence for financial returns is a veritable game changer. But social change is a complex business and good intentions do not necessarily translate into verifiable impact.As the public sector, bilaterals, and multilaterals increasingly partner with impact investors in achieving collective impact goals, the need for strong evidence about impact becomes even more compelling. The time has come to develop new mindsets and approaches that can be widely shared and employed in ways that will advance the frontier for impact measurement and evaluation of impact investing. Each of the menu options presented in this paper can contribute to building evidence about impact. The next generation of measurement will be stronger if the full range of options comes into play and the more evaluative approaches become commonplace as means for developing evidence and testing assumptions about the processes of change from a stakeholder perspective– with a view toward context and systems.Creating and sharing evidence about impact is a key lever for contributing to greater impact, demonstrating additionality, and for building confidence among potential investors, partners and observers in this emergent industry on its path to maturation. Further, the range of measurement options offers opportunities to choose appropriate approaches that will allow data to contribute to impact management– to improve on the business model of ventures and to improve services and systems that improve conditions for people and households living in poverty.