Abstract
Abstract:In the South African financial industry (as in the rest of the world), there has been a recurring and growing trend where the majority of information technology (IT) projects are faced with the challenge of exceeding their budgets. The cause of this problem is that the majority of these projects are spending more funds than are allocated by their project budgets due to high and ever-increasing IT costs. This excessive IT project expenditure raises the question of whether these investments in IT are justified, or whether businesses are getting any IT business value or benefits from these deemed successful projects once they are implemented.
Research was undertaken to investigate whether a positive relationship exists between IT project expenditure and business value. The scope of the research was limited to one major bank in South Africa. A literature review was carried out to clarify the research problem. Survey questionnaires were used to collect research data. This data was processed and analysed in order to draw conclusions about the relationship between IT project expenditure, IT project success and business value. Recommendations to practitioners, and conclusions, were based on the research findings.
What emerged from the research findings was that there is a close relationship between IT project expenditure, IT project success and business value. But, for each project, both the IT project success and business value have to be clearly defined. This is because the research indicates that most projects which were deemed successful exceeded their allocated budgets and timelines, clearly not meeting the requirements of the triple constraints criteria for successful projects. The research also highlighted areas of further research required for the whole of the South African banking industry, the rest of the world, and also other industry sectors.
M.Com. (Applied Information Systems)