Governing and Managing IT Investment and Spending, Managing System Implementation and Managing Vendors and Service Providers

In today’s business environment of online transactions and remote delivery of services across multiple time zones and countries that lead to reduced cost and increased efficiencies, IT investments have become the key to sustaining such competitive advantages. The percentage of budgets spent on IT is ever increasing. This paper discusses the IT investment methodology and the related aspects to be considered. The IT investment is also viewed using the financial metrics like ROI, to justify the investments. Most businesses use the ROI measure before finalizing an IT investment. One of the ways IT investments costs are reduced is by using external vendors who are specialized in the specific systems. IT vendor management thus is an area that Businesses need to be handling every day. A proper IT vendor management process needs to be in place to effectively manage IT investments. Some of the IT vendor management aspects have been reviewed in this paper. With IT investments comes changes to the way business is conducted and thus such changes carry risks. Using proper IT implementation strategies, such risks can be mitigated. This paper reviews the Project Management Institute’s approach to IT investment. Investment in IT typically leads to implementing or upgrading systems. Proper processes need to be in place to take care of such investments by adopting IT governance strategies. Without good IT governance strategies, over the long run, the IT investments and processes implemented would diverge from the Business Objectives to be met. This paper would covers the IT governance aspects to highlight this important area