Despite the increased pressure to calculate the return on IT investments, doing
so remains a tricky game. Less than one-fifth of the 370 IT executives who responded
to this month’s survey on ROI practices believe the ROI information supplied
by vendors, and a third say their business colleagues don’t trust the payback
numbers they provide. Still, calculating ROI has many beneficial—if tangential—effects.
Three quarters of respondents say they work closely with their business colleagues
to develop ROI metrics, and the happy results of that collaboration are evident
throughout the survey. The great majority of respondents say that taking the
time and effort required to analyze the return on IT investments gives IT greater
credibility throughout their organizations. Finally, more than two-thirds of
IT executives say their ROI practices have had a positive effect on IT alignment.
As subjective as ROI numbers can be, making the effort, especially when done
in collaboration with the business, appears to be eminently worthwhile.
