EVALUATING BUSINESS INFORMATION-SYSTEMS - REFLECTIONS ON AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY

A leading vendor of information technology (IT) systems commissioned t he authors to investigate how its clients made their decision to acqui re new systems, what benefits they expected to gain, and the kind of e valuation procedures used both before taking the decision to go ahead and subsequently when the systems were in operation. The 16 organizati ons participating in the study had all purchased major systems and wer e willing to talk frankly about their experiences. The results of the research have been extensively reported elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to draw out the implications for IT management. The paper op ens with a summary of the findings of the original research. The main part of the paper consists of six case studies from which the manageme nt issues are drawn out.