Citation:
Neubauer, T. A. (2007). Business process based valuation and selection of IT investments : dvelopment and implementation of a method for the interactive selection of IT investments under multiple objectives [Dissertation, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12708/179492
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Publication Type:
Thesis - Dissertation
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Hochschulschrift - Dissertation
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Language:
English
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Date (published):
2007
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Number of Pages:
227
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Keywords:
Informationstechnologie; Multikriterielle Entscheidungsunterstützung; Geschäftsprozessmanagement; Investitionsauswahl
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Information Technology; Multiobjective Decision Support; Business Process Management; Investment Selection
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Abstract:
Die Modellierung und Optimierung von Geschäftsprozessen ermöglicht Unternehmen die Definition einer einheitlichen Basis, um den externen Nutzen dieser Prozesse besser steuern und managen zu können. Da in der Geschäftswelt von heute der Grossteil der Geschäftsprozesse durch IT-Systeme unterstützt wird, hängt der Erfolg der Geschäftsstrategie zunehmend von der Verfügbarkeit effizienter IT-Systeme und der optimalen Ausrichtung dieser Systeme an den Geschäftsprozessen ab. Aus strategischer Sicht müssen Unternehmen modernste Technologien einsetzen und Innovation im Unternehmen laufend erhöhen, um den steigenden Anforderungen des Marktes und den Herausforderungen durch Mitbewerber gerecht zu werden. Die Investitionen in neue Technologien müssen präzise auf die Geschäftsziele des Unternehmens ausgerichtet werden, da nur auf diese Weise Wettbewerbsvorteile erzielt werden können. Viele Entscheidungsträger sind sich jedoch nicht über das Niveau der IT-Ausgaben und deren Effizienz bewusst. Als Folge kaufen, implementieren und warten Unternehmen zahlreiche Systeme, die keinen Beitrag zum Unternehmenserfolg leisten. Diese Entwicklung hat zu einem vermehrten Bedarf an besseren Methoden für die Ausrichtung der IT-Investitionen an den Geschäftsprozessen geführt, da die Mehrzahl der Entscheidungsträger zunehmend Druck verspürt die Rentabilität der IT-Investitionen rechtfertigen zu müssen. Viele Entscheidungsträger sind der Ansicht, dass ihre Metriken keine ausreichende Unterstützung bei der Erhebung des Nutzens der IT-Investitionen bieten, während sie gleichzeitig wenig Vertrauen in ihre Fähigkeiten bei der akkuraten Berechnung der Rentabilität von IT-Investitionen haben. Zusätzlich muss berücksichtigt werden, dass in der Praxis die Anzahl der verfügbaren IT-Systeme (z.B. Software Produkte, Software Komponenten, Web Services) in den letzten Jahren dramatisch angestiegen ist und eine manuelle Auswahl der für das Unternehmen benötigten, optimalen Systeme beinahe unmöglich geworden ist. Die Komplexität dieser Aufgabe wird zusätzlich noch gesteigert, da Entscheidungsträger bei der Auswahl eines geeigneten Portfolios von IT-Investitionen und somit der Definition des optimalen Investitionsniveaus (i) eine optimale Ausrichtung zwischen Geschäftsprozessen und IT-Investitionen zur Konzentration der Ressourcen auf nutzengenerierende Geschäftsprozesse, (ii) mehrfache Zielsetzungen, (iii) die kosten-effiziente Verwendung der vorhandenen Ressourcen sowie (iv) Abhängigkeiten zwischen Investitionskandidaten berücksichtigen müssen. Da die einfache Steigerung der Ausgaben keine zielführende Strategie darstellt, wurden in der Vergangenheit zahlreiche Verfahren entwickelt, die Entscheidungsträger bei der Auswahl des ``richtigen'' Investitionsniveaus unterstützen sollen. Trotz dieser Vielzahl von Verfahren, die darauf ausgerichtet sind diese komplexe Aufgabe besser lösen zu können, stimmen sowohl Entscheidungsträger aus der Praxis als auch Forscher überein, dass sich die meisten der bestehenden Methoden wie die Nutzwertanalyse (Weighted Scoring Method; WSM) oder der Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) als ungeeignet für die Bewertung und Auswahl von IT-Investitionen erweisen. Tatsächlich weisen beide Verfahren wesentliche Schwachstellen auf. Solche Ansätze bieten dem Entscheidungsträger lediglich eine einzelne Lösung, während ein interaktives Verfahren erlauben würde, unterschiedliche Szenarien zu erkunden und zu analysieren bzw. aktiv am Entscheidungsprozess teilzunehmen und diesen zu kontrollieren. Zur Adressierung der oben angeführten Einschränkungen und Anforderungen, leistet diese Arbeit Beiträge zu den Forschungsgebieten Geschäftsprozessmanagement, Business-IT Alignment und IT-Investitionsbewertung. Die Zielgruppe sind insbesondere Entscheidungsträger wie der CPO, CIO, CEO sowie das mittlere Management in prozessorientierten Unternehmen. Diese Arbeit erweitert bestehende Vorgehensmodelle aus dem Geschäftsprozessmanagement mit einer zusätzlichen Phase, die die Bewertung und Auswahl von IT-Investitionen auf Basis der Geschäftsprozesse ermöglicht. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein neuer Ansatz für die Entscheidungsunterstützung mit dem Namen Atana vorgestellt. Dieser Ansatz erlaubt die Bestimmung von Lösungsalternativen (z.B. Portfolios von Softwaresystemen), die sowohl zulässig in Bezug auf die gegebenen Einschränkungen sowie pareto-effizient in Bezug auf eine bestimmte Anzahl von Kriterien sind.
Der Ansatz unterstützt den Entscheidungsträger bei der interaktiven Erforschung des ermittelten Lösungsraums, bis dieser die ``beste'' Lösung unter Berücksichtigung seiner persönlichen Präferenzen findet.
Der neue Ansatz wurde in einen Prototyp implementiert und im Rahmen von zwei Fallstudien getestet.
Der Ansatz unterstützt den Entscheidungsträger bei der interaktiven Erforschung des ermittelten Lösungsraums, bis dieser die ``beste'' Lösung unter Berücksichtigung seiner persönlichen Präferenzen findet.
Der neue Ansatz wurde in einen Prototyp implementiert und im Rahmen von zwei Fallstudien getestet.
In many sectors, companies model and optimize their business processes in order to better manage the external value that comes from these processes. With the majority of business processes in today's highly automated world being supported by IT systems, the success of a business strategy heavily depends on the availability of appropriate IT systems. From a strategic point of view, organizations must apply latest technology and accelerate innovation in order to withstand competition.
Investments must precisely target a company's specific business needs, as competitive advantages can only be accrued by aligning systems according to the corporate business processes and strategic objectives.
Nevertheless, companies are frequently unaware of the level of their capital expenditure and -- even more importantly -- whether these investments are effective. As a result, they more often than not buy, implement, and maintain systems they either do not need or cannot use properly and, thus, do not contribute to the corporate value. This has led to a need for better measures for aligning IT expenditure to actual business needs because the majority of IT decision makers felt increased pressure to prove Return on IT investments (ROI), while they believed that their metrics did not fully capture the value of IT and they had no confidence in their ability to accurately calculate the returns.
Additionally, the number of IT systems (e.g., software products, software components or services) has increased dramatically during the past few years, making an efficient manual composition of these systems impossible. As a result, decision makers selecting the most appropriate set (i.e., portfolio) of IT systems and, thus, the right level of investments, must take into consideration (i) an optimal alignment between business processes and IT systems in order to concentrate resources on value-generating and supplementary business processes, (ii) multiple objectives that are often mutually exclusive, (iii) the cost-efficient use of available resources, as well as (iv) interdependencies between the systems. As just spending more is obviously not a winning strategy, a variety of approaches have been introduced that aim at supporting decision makers in identifying the ``right'' level of IT investment. Those valuation methods that focus mainly on financial measures are often considered to be ill-suited for IT investments because they fail to properly take into consideration the many important non-financial criteria. An analogous reasoning holds for approaches that primarily focus on technical issues. Thus, multicriteria approaches that are capable of properly considering financial, technical and further types of objectives come into play. However, the two approaches that are most commonly used in practice, namely the Weighted Scoring Method (WSM) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), have a number of serious drawbacks. In particular, decision makers demand to have full control over the decision making process, i.e., they typically are not willing to just provide a priori weights for the criteria under consideration and leave all the rest to some system. Instead, they want to learn about alternative solutions and then be supported in making their own decisions in an interactive and intuitive way.
In order to address the reservations and demands outlined above, this thesis contributes to the research on business process management, business-IT alignment and IT valuation. The target group primarily consists of decision makers, such as the Chief Process Officer (CPO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and middle management in process oriented companies. This thesis aims at extending existing Business Process Management (BPM) methodologies by integrating an additional phase that enables the valuation, allocation, and selection of IT investments required by given business processes. By doing so, this thesis presents a new decision support approach, named Atana. This approach determines solution alternatives (i.e., portfolios of software systems) that are both feasible with respect to given constraints and Pareto-efficient with respect to a number of objectives that have been identified as the most relevant ones for a given decision setting. The approach supports decision makers in interactively exploring the determined solution space until they find their individually ``best'' solution, i.e., the particular combination of IT systems that promises a mix of objective values that best fits the decision maker's preferences. In order to illustrate this new approach, this thesis shows the implementation of this approach into a tool and describes the results of two case studies.
Investments must precisely target a company's specific business needs, as competitive advantages can only be accrued by aligning systems according to the corporate business processes and strategic objectives.
Nevertheless, companies are frequently unaware of the level of their capital expenditure and -- even more importantly -- whether these investments are effective. As a result, they more often than not buy, implement, and maintain systems they either do not need or cannot use properly and, thus, do not contribute to the corporate value. This has led to a need for better measures for aligning IT expenditure to actual business needs because the majority of IT decision makers felt increased pressure to prove Return on IT investments (ROI), while they believed that their metrics did not fully capture the value of IT and they had no confidence in their ability to accurately calculate the returns.
Additionally, the number of IT systems (e.g., software products, software components or services) has increased dramatically during the past few years, making an efficient manual composition of these systems impossible. As a result, decision makers selecting the most appropriate set (i.e., portfolio) of IT systems and, thus, the right level of investments, must take into consideration (i) an optimal alignment between business processes and IT systems in order to concentrate resources on value-generating and supplementary business processes, (ii) multiple objectives that are often mutually exclusive, (iii) the cost-efficient use of available resources, as well as (iv) interdependencies between the systems. As just spending more is obviously not a winning strategy, a variety of approaches have been introduced that aim at supporting decision makers in identifying the ``right'' level of IT investment. Those valuation methods that focus mainly on financial measures are often considered to be ill-suited for IT investments because they fail to properly take into consideration the many important non-financial criteria. An analogous reasoning holds for approaches that primarily focus on technical issues. Thus, multicriteria approaches that are capable of properly considering financial, technical and further types of objectives come into play. However, the two approaches that are most commonly used in practice, namely the Weighted Scoring Method (WSM) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), have a number of serious drawbacks. In particular, decision makers demand to have full control over the decision making process, i.e., they typically are not willing to just provide a priori weights for the criteria under consideration and leave all the rest to some system. Instead, they want to learn about alternative solutions and then be supported in making their own decisions in an interactive and intuitive way.
In order to address the reservations and demands outlined above, this thesis contributes to the research on business process management, business-IT alignment and IT valuation. The target group primarily consists of decision makers, such as the Chief Process Officer (CPO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and middle management in process oriented companies. This thesis aims at extending existing Business Process Management (BPM) methodologies by integrating an additional phase that enables the valuation, allocation, and selection of IT investments required by given business processes. By doing so, this thesis presents a new decision support approach, named Atana. This approach determines solution alternatives (i.e., portfolios of software systems) that are both feasible with respect to given constraints and Pareto-efficient with respect to a number of objectives that have been identified as the most relevant ones for a given decision setting. The approach supports decision makers in interactively exploring the determined solution space until they find their individually ``best'' solution, i.e., the particular combination of IT systems that promises a mix of objective values that best fits the decision maker's preferences. In order to illustrate this new approach, this thesis shows the implementation of this approach into a tool and describes the results of two case studies.
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