In Search of Business Value: Ensuring a Return on Your Technology Investment - Hardcover

Simon, Bill; McDowell, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590790626 ISBN 13: 9781590790625

Publisher: SelectBooks, 2010

Synopsis

In today's high-tech business world, few issues are more important than how companies can gain competitive advantage from using new technology, especially information technology (IT). In 'In Search of Business Value', Microsoft vice president Robert McDowell and best-selling business author William L. Simon address that problem head-on, describing the steps every organization must take to get the best bang from each buck spent on IT infrastructure.Drawing on their own personal experience and that of over twenty-five corporate and IT leaders from the worlds of business and government, 'In Search of Business Value' covers in detail such issues as bringing organizational leaders on board in promoting the use of IT, enlisting staff support, using IT to lower costs and improve productivity, integrating the IT and business sides of an organization, and using IT to support best business practices.IT these days is an indispensable tool in defining and achieving corporate goals. 'In Search of Business Value' is an indispensable tool for corporate leaders and managers looking to make IT work successfully for their organizations.

About this title

From the Author

With IT spend taking such a big chunk of the corporate budget, the question of how to be sure you achieve business value from technology has never been of greater urgency. It’s the underlying question explored in In Search of Business Value, offering insight from both corporate leaders and leaders of IT... For today’s business leaders, I think there are few issues more important.

From the Foreword by Jeff Raikes

From the Inside Flap

Once upon a time, technology decisions were left to IT. But in a bitterly competitive world, how should a company decide how much to spend on technology? And whose responsibility should it be to make the business case for technology?

In Search of Business Value offers a practical, close-up examination of how a manager or executive can best determine whether a new technology expenditure is justified by a business need.

Once again, McDowell and Simon have written a pragmatic management guideline on how to make decisions about technology and profit — a guide to decsions on what’s needed, what’s a waste, and what justifies a decision to buy.

Although this book will be important to corporate Information Technology managers and Chief Technology Officers, it speaks as well to CEOs and CFOs of major companies, entrepreneurs and executives of small- and mid-sized companies, and the heads of departments, divisions, and workgroups. If you advise or make important spending decisions about technology, you won’t want to miss this fast-paced book.

In Search of Business Value is filled with input from companies that have been successful in realizing returns on investment in technology, incorporating the wisdom of executives from major companies in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America that are on the leading edge of this vital subject. Their stories make fascinating reading; their advice is beyond valuable.

The conversations, histories, and anecdotes recounted in these pages cut through the fog of competing concepts on technology decision-making, and shed light on such issues as:

· The role of IT in achieving business value
· Justifying IT expenditures beforehand vs. demonstrating value afterwards
· The role of workplace culture in both integrating and furthering the use of technology

Commenting on the authors’ previous book by the same writing team, Assistant Secretary of the Army Rich Whiston wrote to say, "I am going to suggest that your book be issued as required reading at both the Command and General Staff College and also the War College. We of the National Defense arena are most grateful to you for sharing your wisdom."

Edition details

• Publisher: SelectBooks
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1590790626
• ISBN 13: 9781590790625
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224