An Exploration of the Role of Systems Analysis for Ex Ante Business Value Evaluations of Information Systems

Early work on the evaluation of the business impact of information technology (IT) focused on linking investments in IT to productivity. Recently, the trend has shifted to viewing IT within its specific organizational context, in order to better evaluate its impact. In this research in progress, we take the next step along this trend by proposing a framework that examines the business value of an information system (IS) within its context. Our framework explores the insights that systems analysis can provide in analyzing the costs and the several types of benefits that can potentially be due to an IS. This work describes the motivation for the framework, and the propositions that link systems analysis to business analysis. The complete project will involve multiple case studies in real world organizations to test the framework.