But value has always been an elusive creature. And those soft benefits can't always be quantified. If you understand how your company operates, you'll be able to pinpoint the processes that drive its success and attach an ROI to IT projects that improve it. Next, identify and map all the processes that go into making that happen. For instance, higher customer retention depends on higher customer satisfaction.
Satisfaction is derived from successful interaction with the company.
Benson tells of a meeting where she gathered a group of executives from a Fortune 500 company to discuss their procurement process. Having quantified the time it took to complete each step, she then assigned costs based on the salaries of the employees involved. The 15-minute exercise left the group stunned. Moreover, the mapping process gets departments talking to one another, helping to reduce or eliminate redundant processes even before the IT implementation is complete. For IT to provide real value, the solution has to add measurable improvements to the process.