Achieving Business Value From Technology

"Tony Murphy addresses the difficult question of the value of IT investments head on. He translates an elegant theory into effective practice. The case studies in the book effectively reinforce his key messages."
—Dr. Dermot Moynihan, Senior Vice President, World Wide Chemical Development, GlaxoSmithKline

"This book is the answer to most CIOs' need for a well-structured, pragmatic, and easily implemented set of tools and practices designed to answer the universal problem of managing and measuring IT's contribution to the business. Tony Murphy's unique blend of practical experience, industry best practice, and excellent communication skills provides the reader with a valuable-and highly readable-guide on how best to achieve that elusive objective of reliably realizing the business benefits of IT investments."
—Michael Rice, oup Director of IT, Kerry Group plc

"At Oxfam we are one year into a three-year IT strategy based on the principles Tony Murphy lays out in this book, and there is a real, positive difference in how IT is perceived, and in its real strategic position within the organization. If you have ever wondered just how you can gain strategic alignment for your IT function, and then how to make the practical link to IT investment for the organization, Tony has provided a framework that joins them both."
—Simon Jennings, Head of Information Systems, Oxfam GB

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Very Informative and Helpful Read, 2008-03-12
Overall, I think that Achieving Business Value from Technology would be very helpful to anyone wanting to learn more about the value that can be added to a business by investing in technology or someone in a business that is purchasing and/or implementing some new form of technology. Specifically, I appreciated the fact that the book gave explanations as to why technology investments have historically been associated with a decrease in overall productivity.
The book is fairly easy to understand, even if you do not have an IT based background. The book begins with an evolution of technology in business and specific cases of IT failure that help you to grasp the more technical aspects that are found further into the book. I would definitely recommend this book to an enterprise that is considering investing in technology, because there is a step by step process in the book that could potentially save the company from investing in systems whose benefits will not outweigh the costs. Aside from that, the book also teaches readers how to assess the value of new technology using non-financial metrics.
I would not recommend this book to someone who is reading for pleasure, even if you are interested in information technology, because it is not overly interesting. If you are not studying the value of information technology investments or hoping to implement new technology in your business, I would say this is not the book for you. However, if one of those things is your goal, this book is very informative about how to obtain and measure value from technology investments.



2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Achieving Business Value from Technology, 2008-03-12
Achieving Business Value from Technology was an insightful and interesting book to read. It gave a lot of information pertaining to implementation information technology systems. This book is really good for someone who is in the information technology field, or who is looking to gain knowledge and expertise in this area. In particular, I believe this book is good for someone who has a working knowledge of information technology system, but is looking to gain an edge as to the strategies that should be used when implementing this type of system.

I felt that this book is going to be hard to read by someone who has little or no knowledge or experience in the information technology industry. On occasion, this book used large and sophositicated IT jargon that a college student such as myself had a hard time following. However, for someone who already has experience in the IT profession, this would be no problem at all. In particular, I feel this book is great for anyone who works for an enterprise that is considering implementing a new IT system, such as ERP. This book walks the reader through step by step as to how to be most effective in implementing a new system. In particular, the book is also very helpful because it discusses the ways in which an IT investment project should also be measured to determine the successfulness of the project. This book is helpful for those in large and small enterprises alike. It gives suggestions and examples of organziations of all sizes.

Overall, I felt that this book was a great read for anyone interested in implementing a new IT system because it helped set parameters for implementation as well as gave advice to help maximize the value from any IT investment projects.


11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Clear modern thinking about Business Value, 2002-10-18
Clearly written, this book debunks some myths and sets a modern path towards pursuit of business value. We need plain talking books that bridge the business/IT divide and tell it the way it is.

Great reading and immediately useful.


17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

Well written, well organized, very practical, 2002-10-08
I was leary when I saw the words "practical guide" in the title as I find that the phrase is often far from the truth. I guess I was in a gambling mood because I took a shot and found that this is a rare case where the advice here is actually implementable. The book includes detailed case studies, very specific advice on appropriate measures or "pillars" as the author calls them of IT project value, and lists of sample questions and metrics for each pillar.

All in all this is a very useful book for justifying IT projects particularly in today's environment when your pal the CFO is squeezing every penny trying to get blood out.

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