Value to business
CSI recognises that the value IT provides to the business can be realised and measured in different ways:
• Improvements: Outcomes that are better when compared with the previous state.
• Benefits: The gains achieved through the implemented improvements.
• Return on investment (ROI): The difference between the realised benefit and the cost of achieving it.
• Value on investment (VOI): The extra value created by the improvement
including non-monetary benefits and outcomes.
Implementing CSI means committing to continued investment in order to create and maintain service improvement plans (SIPs).
The expected value from an investment is a critical component of any business case, and CSI stresses the need for periodic re-evaluation following the implementation of improvements by:
• checking that benefits/ROI/VOI are realised by specific improvements;
• identifying the best investments by estimating benefits from different
initiatives;
• assessing the impact or current benefit of any proposed change of organisation structure or business strategy, or of regulatory or legislative change.
Many organisations have been traditionally very poor at checking that planned benefits have actually been delivered in the manner intended and hence often
compound the situation by making future decisions on the assumption that some significant change in value has occurred.