Towards a Financially Optimal Design ofIT Services
The current financial crisis forces companies to allocate IT budgets more effectively and thusincreases the demand for suitable methods to evaluate the financial impact of IT investments. Thisespecially applies to service-orientation, a design paradigm which facilitates the standardisationand flexibilisation of business processes and IT applications, topics that currently are very muchin vogue in science and practice. This paper focuses on the realisation of a new functionality by ITservices and presents a methodology to determine their financially optimal functional scope on thecontinuum between realising just one IT service providing the whole functionality and realisingmany IT services each providing only a small share of functionality. This approach allows for amulti-period financial valuation of an uncertain demand for the new functionality, as well as of anuncertain company-wide reuse of the corresponding IT services. Finally, the methodology isevaluated by an example from a financial services provider....