Adaptable Techniques for Making IT-Related Investment Decisions

The author investigated the main methods used for making IT-related investment decisions. In the view of these methods it can be said that no method was found that would help to make investment decisions 'routinelike'. The use of traditional financial indicators – which would be suitable for so-called regular investments - has a lot of obstructions and it would be dangerous to base decisions only on them. Return on Investment (ROI) methods are used in the case of classical investments (buildings, machineries) to analyze capital investments. Their simplest explanation is that net profit is expressed in percentage of invested capital. If it is a planned investment, a quotient is used for comparing variations. Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) has gained upon from the 60’s (in case of several IT-related investments as well), as it made possible to consider certain not quantifiable factors and uncertain elements too, so it meant a great help for choosing between different alternatives. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)-model was created by GartnerGroup in the beginning of the 90’s, which is an excellent method for monitoring IT infrastructure and for analysing direct and indirect costs of possessed and used softwares and hardwares. An another method for making investment decisions, Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) is an attempt made by Microsoft and Intellectual Arbitrage to develop a better-balanced approach for examining and developing IT projects as it had been before. REJ offers the possibility of assessment balance against the cost-models dealing with only the cost side of a project

The development of information and communication technology: An empirical study

Information and communication technology (ICT) can be regarded as a universal technological system, which is closely linked to all of the previous systems and creates new, more complex technological systems. ICT’s main characterizing function is to assure acquiring, storing, processing, delivering, distributing, handling, controlling, transforming, retrieving and using information. The rich literature of the information society discusses its diversified functions in detail. During my analysis, I have taken the information society as a normative future plan for Hungary, and I have also been looking for the answer of what progress has been made in building the information society in the studied Hungarian economic sectors. In this paper I examine the following issues to what extent we can speak about the information society in Hungary nowadays; what is the development level of the information society in several economic sectors and company sizes compared to each other and to the member states of the European Union; how this development level can be measured and calculated; how the development level of information and communication technology increases in certain company sizes; what trends can be observed in the development process of the individual economic sectors and various company sizes. I extend my examination to the static, momentary state of the development level of ICT devices used in various economic sectors as well as to their dynamic analysis, expected pace of growth and their qualification