A pragmatic approach to IT investment appraisal for medium-size enterprises

The evaluation of IT investment opportunities is a notoriously thorny issue. This is especially true for medium-size enterprises lacking a large IT staff, a heavy corporate strategy department; or detailed skills and knowledge in investment appraisal methods. This paper proposes a three-step framework to IT investment appraisal specifically tailored to the needs of medium-size enterprises. The process uses several simple but theoretically founded and easy to comprehend models facilitating not only the individual assessment of the IT investment opportunity but further aiding the mutual understanding and alignment of business with IT.