ROI - How to Justify Information Technology (IT) and Other Programs via ROI - (IT-77)

A practical 2-day, hands-on Seminar for practitioners

This is the only available seminar on ROI (Return on Investment) methods and practices for busy practitioners who do not have time to become financial experts and yet must develop pragmatic ROI proposals for their IT and technology initiatives. 

Bring your own project idea and apply the principles in a class workshop.

VENUES AND DATES

Boston Area:  Inquire for dates and for in-house presentations.

TODAY'S ENVIRONMENT and the NEED TO BE PROFICIENT IN ROI METHODS

The word is out.  Management and financial officers no longer accept vagaries, such as: "It's a must for corporate survival to keep competitiveness"  " We owe it to ourselves to go ahead with this new initiative, competition is",  "It will help leverage our present IT or technology infrastructure", "We'll be at the frontier of knowledge and ahead of the game"......

The world recession, the fact that you must now compete for scarce corporate investment dollars with other projects, and the fact that purely intangible considerations are no longer enough to justify investments forces CIOs, IT executives, technologists and operations personnel to a) prepare pragmatic proposals; b) justify them in quantitative ROI terms to stand a chance of gaining approval for your vital investment initiatives. 

You must become far more conversant with ROI methods and how to justify your proposals.  Having financial experts in the Finance or Planning departments to verify the ROI does not excuse you from preparing your best ROI proposal that you can, since a well-structured and prepared ROI proposal by the originators stands a much better chance of moving through the approval gates. 

Proposals are often so poorly structured that the most the number crunchers in finance can do is only to reformat your basically ill structured facts into the ROI computation formulas.  If the proposal, its structure and the numbers are ill conceived, your chances of the financial experts endorsing your proposal are nil.

BENEFITS

This seminar is designed to help you:

·          Become practically proficient with the principles and practices of developing sound IT or technology proposals to justify any investment required;

·          Become proficient in the most commonly used ROI (Return on Investment) methodologies and their pros and cons

·          Apply the knowledge acquired right in class, using your sample project, to develop an effective ROI based on the most commonly used ROI methods.

The seminar will prepare you to develop effective ROI proposals once you go back to the office.  The materials and unique textbook provided with the seminar will continue to be an excellent reference material your work.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

·          CIOs, CTOs and IT Executives

·          Software development managers, developers, IT professionals and and system integrators

·          Operations managers and personnel

·          Computer Specialists

·          Internal or external consultants and legal/financial advisors

·          Financial personnel who need to tune their skills in the investment view of programs as opposed to accounting aspects

·          Users or buyers of IT services

·          Personnel involved in procurement and assessment of Outsourcing and application service provisioning services

·          Anyone concerned with developing or approving investments for new technology and conventional area proposals

SEMINAR OUTLINE

DAY 1

1.    Pragmatic Organizations Demand ROI justification for New IT and other types of Initiatives.

·    Why you must become proficient in Return on Investment (ROI) principles and practices

·    The need to prepare effective ROI-based proposals

·    Types of IT and other investments – New processes and applications – Added infrastructure proposals

2.        Key Components and Considerations in ROI Assessments.

·    Key elements in an ROI assessment – Terminology

·    Developing a Value Proposition for your New IT or Other Programs – Tangible and intangible considerations

·    Developing the Income, profit or savings cash flow stream – Other considerations (Baseline reference case, proposed case, timing of investment, working capital, tax, one time versus recurring expenses, depreciation, etc.)

3.    Approaches to Handle Return on Investment.

·    Cost recovery

·    Ratio approaches (simple return on investment, payback, ratio analysis)

·    Discounted cash flow – Time value of money

·    Internal rate of Return

·    Net present value

·    Scenario

·    Other approaches (REJ -Rapid Economic Justification)

·    Sensitivity analysis

4.    Preparing the Basis for ROI Sessions Using your own Selected Case.

DAY 2

5.    ROI Methodologies and Detailed Illustrations.

·    Payback

·    Return on Investment (simple ROI)

·    Present Value

·    Internal Rate of Return

·    Scenario Justification Method

·    Developing and quantifying the value of intangible benefits

6.        Workshop on Developing the ROI for your Selected Case.

·    Group workshop sessions (Participants work on their case.  Group participation from companies is encouraged)

·    Documenting ROI results

·    Presentation

7.       Considerations in ROI Proposal Justification

·    ROI is a requirement but only a financial number that does not guarantee success

·    Political considerations

·    Success factors to enhance chances of success for your investment initiative

·    Relating ROI to your Company’s Mission statement and Business Goals and Objectives

·    Seeking management sponsorship and management leadership

·    Considerations in making the presentation of your investment initiative more attractive

·    Enhancing your proposal with intangible benefits

6.    Discussion on special areas on interest to participants.

MATERIALS

Participants receive a unique set of class notes plus a copy of “How to Prepare ROI Assessments for IT and Other Programs" (MAP-52) authored by the instructor.  The materials alone are worth the price of the seminar/workshop.

To register fill out and mail or email the form below:

Seminar Fee:  $1,350, includes text materials.   A 10% discount applies to the third and additional participants for groups of three or more attending the same course.

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