The exhibit lists the primary activities a company should undertake to implement governance and software asset management processes. The implications of making new software investments are fundamental. Rather, IT expenditure requests should be identified with the specific business benefit streams they can create. To ensure a project delivers the promised benefits, companies should test each proposed investment to make sure it is aligned with the company's long-term business strategy. To minimize the risks of nonperformance, companies should assign someone the specific responsibility for measuring benefits.
Proper measurement can help companies realize benefits.
If a company takes steps to measure the business process performance of its IT investments, it can achieve above-average results. Benefits measurement techniques will be helpful in guiding a company in adjusting IT investments to changing conditions. By implementing an active benefits measurement program, a company can ensure it is using scarce funds to maximum advantage. SOP 98-1 also has important implications when a company is managing existing investments and retiring underperforming assets. Unfortunately, organizations rarely retire software as long as it still works and has not been replaced by another program that does exactly the same thing.