Patent ID: 7603253

Claim:
A computer implemented method for creating a new return on investment template from a default template and a plurality of modified templates in order to calculate an amount of money a customer will spend for a process upgrade, the method comprising: developing a data list from the plurality of modified templates and the modified templates' effectiveness factors, wherein the data in the modified templates is weighted according to a plurality of effectiveness factors of each the modified templates, and wherein the plurality of effectiveness factors are calculated by determining an application accuracy, a computer accuracy, and an information technology infrastructure accuracy; plotting the data list on a histogram, the histogram comprising an orthogonal axis for each parameter in the default template; and analyzing each parameter by performing steps comprising: determining if the histogram contains more than one peak for a parameter; responsive to a determination that the histogram contains one peak, updating a default template parameter value; responsive to a determination that the histogram contains more than one peak, determining if the default template parameter value is within one standard deviation of a first histogram peak; responsive to a determination that the default template parameter value is within one standard deviation of the first histogram peak, updating the default template parameter value using a data for the first histogram peak which is within one standard deviation of the default template parameter value, and analyzing any histogram peak that is not within one standard deviation of the default template parameter value; responsive to a determination that the default template parameter value is not within one standard deviation of any of the histogram peaks, analyzing a second histogram peak, and determining if a standard deviation for the second histogram peak is less than a template creation threshold; and responsive to a determination that the standard deviation for the analyzed second histogram peak is less than the template creation threshold, creating the new return on investment template using an average determined by analyzing the second histogram peak, wherein the new return on investment template calculates the amount of money the customer will spend for the process upgrade; wherein the effectiveness factor of a template is based at least upon the accuracy of the applications in the template, the accuracy of the computers in the template, the accuracy of the customer's information technology infrastructure, and whether the customer made a purchase.