by
Christopher Gardner
Information technology
has many well-known success stories, such as America Online, @Home, and Windows
95. However, there have also been far too many failures. The reason for this
is that the effect of information technology on a company's shareholder value
has been unpredictable. Lacking a method to analyze the value of an IT system,
managers are forced to make decisions based on fragmented data and guesswork,
which often prove to be faulty.
Now, it is possible for
you to avoid the same mistakes with your information system choices. The Valuation
of Information Technology demonstrates how to assess the shareholder value
created by a system before it is built. Top management consultant Christopher
Gardner provides a unique framework for analyzing the value of an IT system
in a quantitative fashion.
This solution-oriented
book walks you through every aspect of evaluating an IT system for your business,
from concept to shareholder value. Gardner lays out a method that will allow
you to not only determine the contribution of a system to shareholder value,
but also guide the activities involved in its construction so they create
value.
Integrating techniques
from market research, computer science, and corporate finance, Gardner shows
how you can maximize your chances for success in applying information technology.
The book is replete with real-world examples from such companies as AT&T,
@Home, and Time Warner. These field-tested solutions will help you tackle
various practical problems, improve your corporate decision-making, and make
more productive use of capital and labor by avoiding investment mistakes.
Written from the shareholder
value perspective, The Valuation of Information Technology:
Explains step by
step how to estimate the shareholder value created by an IT system
Describes how the
analytical methods provided are applied in practice to get answers, with
Internet examples
Emphasizes ease-of-use
with direct language and liberal use of tables and figures
Shows how any type
of IT system can be evaluated using the techniques discussed
Clear and accessible, The
Valuation of Information Technology is both a management and analytical tool
for developing a successful information system.
ISBN 0-471-37831-3
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Christopher
Gardner is a partner and cofounder of iValue.
He is the author of the highly acclaimed book The Valuation of Information
Technology: A Guide for Strategy Development, Valuation, and Financial
Planning (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Previously he was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers
LLP from 1999-2002 where he led the Information Technology Strategy Group
in the New York office. He was a vice president at Bain & Company from
1996-1997 and worked at A.T. Kearney from 1992-1995, where he was elected
principal by the Board of Directors. He began his career as a management
consultant at McKinsey & Company as an information technology specialist
from 1989-1992. He has served a wide-range of clients in the financial
services, media, telecommunications, high technology, and other major
industries. They include Amex, AT&T, Baan, Bank America, Goldman-Sachs,
Hewlett-Packard, McGraw-Hill, and Skynet. Prior to consulting, he worked
in the high technology industry for over 8 years. He joined the Digital
Equipment Corporation after graduation, and worked as a manager in the
semiconductor, office workstation, and VAX computer system development
groups, from 1980 to 1988. With the support of Digital he co-founded The
Software Agency in 1984, a company engaged in the business of representing
software authors to software publishers. He was educated at the University
of Chicago where he received his MBA in Finance in 1980 and a BS in Physics
a year earlier in 1979. He spent his summers working at Fermilab and at
the Enrico Fermi Institute and is a graduate of the Bronx High School
of Science. He is a member of the board of iGa2, a charitable foundation.
He was born in Los Angeles, raised in the Midwest, and now lives on the
East Coast. He can be reached at cgardner@i-value.com.
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