Building a Financial Case: Justifying a Personal IT Investment

The Assignment:Using the frameworks and ideas presented in the readings on IT investment, each student will analyze a real-world investment in IT that they are either contemplating or have recently made for their personal use (e.g., personal laptop, tablet, etc.).

The Analysis. At a minimum, the analysis should include a strategic business case (300-500 words) and a financial business case (no more than 1500 words). Refer to chapter 13 and 14 for guidance on how to construct these cases. Also, whereas the strategic business case is a relatively short narrative, the financial business case should include one-time and recurring costs and benefits, as well as tangible and intangible costs and benefits. It is also important that the student explain how they monetized the intangible costs and benefits. The financial analysis should conclude with a table similar to Table 14-4 from the S&Z text, i.e., the analysis should include costs/benefits over time, and include calculations for NPV, ROI, and Payback Period (no IRR required). Students can consider their personal time worth $100/hour and that their personal “cost of capital” is 10%.

The Deliverable. The deliverable is a 1500-2000-word document and will be uploaded as a single Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx) to the course “Dropbox” on the published due date.