Developing an IT portfolio approach to justify IT investments

Abstract

Due to the rapid speed of globalization and evolving technologies, firms rely on IT much heavier than before. They use IT not just to cope with the environment, but also to gain competitive advantages. Therefore, it is important for firms to invest on the right while also critical IT with limited resources. To fulfill this need, this research aims at developing an IT portfolio method to evaluate and determine the priorities of IT investments based on three criteria: IT alignment, business value, and e-readiness. A real business practice serves as a case to demonstrate the applicability of our proposed framework. We believe the final findings are helpful to (1) practitioners who can use this framework to justify their IT investments; and (2) researchers who can build upon this model to further examine the application of IT portfolio methods. © 2011 IEEE.