This is either because of planned outsourcing of maintenance or unplanned dependence on consultants due to the inability to retain internal staff. Also, in general, few users correctly estimate the effort in a major upgrade. In reality, there are a number of essential planning, rehearsal, testing and other steps prior to attempting the cutover. While managers joke about how poor IT cost estimation has been, their expectation was that package projects were lower-risk and easier to estimate. These options may mean lower costs in the operation and improvement phases if users can be insulated from support staff turnover and frequent release upgrades.
Vendors tout high payback from implementing their products.
But when compared to real TCO, the payback from many application projects is actually poor. A TCO analysis would force them to acknowledge costs throughout the life cycle, and show how they are working to streamline effort. Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable.