Home
Reviews
FAQ
Contact the Author
Musings... 
Additional Material

The Valuation of Information Technology
A Guide for Strategy Development, Valuation, and Financial Planning
v

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
     

     
    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.

    Copyright 2024, Phoenix Technical Publications

    If you have any comments on this page or problems, contact webmaster@PhoenixTechPubs.com