Patent ID: 7917450

Claim:
A computer implemented method for estimating information technology integration costs, comprising: recording capital data associated with a target enterprise, wherein the capital data comprises an infrastructure data, computer data, network element data, and retail store data; recording staffing data associated with the target enterprise, wherein the staffing data includes information technology staff data, employee data, and contractor data; recording integration goal data associated with the target enterprise; calculating, by a computer, a back office cost based on recorded data associated with the target enterprise, wherein the recorded data comprises the capital data, the staffing data, and the integration goal data, wherein the back office cost comprises a capital cost that is based on a data switches cost estimate and a voice sites cost estimate, wherein the voice sites cost estimate is based on a voice over internet protocol factor multiplied by a product of a number of network elements and a number of general employees, and subsequently divided by a product of a number of retail stores multiplied by a number of retail computers; predicting, by a computer, a retail cost based on the recorded data; computing, by a computer, an infrastructure cost based on the recorded data; determining, by a computer, a computer cost based on the recorded data; combining the back office cost, the retail cost, the infrastructure cost and the computer cost to produce an information technology integration cost; and outputting the information technology integration cost by an output device.