Making Information Technology Decisions

The year 2002 article, ‘A hard and soft look at Information Technology (IT) investments’ indicates how hardware and software may be very affordable but may be followed with technological complications and costs that are hard-to-determine and hard-to-predict; thus, its author mentions how difficult it is to make IT decisions and those that are related to it. Although several companies have reacted to this issue thru the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) approach, the writer stated that IT decisions should be based on “total value of ownership” (TVO) or the value-including benefits, considering its hard impacts (e.g., cost of new hardware and savings in personnel costs) and soft impacts (e.g., market share and productivity gains). The TVO can be estimated through the traditional, robust cost/benefit analysis modified to take into consideration the various issues pertaining to IT investment decisions. Because IT is very vital to many business operations, it should be managed well or else it can end up as a liability. Organizations that depend solely on the basis of cost, and not on the basis of value, in making their IT investment decisions end up having the risk of passing up vast opportunities that can give them competitive advantage.

The article made me realize how big the responsibility of IT managers and its subordinates actually is for they are the ones who will come up with IT investment decision. Thus, I think they should be highly adaptive to the fast-changing trends and they must be quick thinkers in understanding present and foreseeing upcoming technology when planning for IT-related investments and making such decisions. Because the world is swiftly evolving due to constant technology developments, companies should, furthermore, focus well on their information resource management. I must iterate that they should anticipate and prepare themselves for changes that are unavoidable, changes that will determine IT investments and consequently,