Measuring the economic value of information systems

Abstract

The determination of value of information or information systems is a basic issue for information management. In order to solve it several questions must be answered like: what is the object of valuation; how is value defined and measured; and what constitutes a coherent and usable method for valuation. In this paper an approach is outlined that combines the information commodity approach, activity-based costing, and graph modelling. The first is used to define the object of analysis (an information commodity) and the nature of value (the demand value at the marketplace). The third allows the modelling of business processes in terms of activities and cost relations between activities. The second enables the assignment of costs to activities modelled in the graph. Together they constitute a coherent and usable method for determining the value of IS. This is illustrated by means of a case study.