The Art & Science of e-Business ROI

DM Review: Data Warehouse Delivery: The Bake-Off of One

Picking an IT supplier this way can be lots of fun - but is it a good use of time and money ?
quote: One of the most hallowed traditions of business intelligence (BI) projects is the vendor/tool bake-off. Vendors are gathered, demonstrations are conducted, endless meetings are held to discuss the merits and shortcomings of each candidate, more rounds of demonstrations are performed, tests are executed and finally two or three finalists emerge. These survivors are pitted against each other in a bake-off that often resembles televised wrestling in volume, ethics and head-banging action.
posted by Frank Abrams at 8/17/2001

Enterprise Portal ROI Meta Event Agenda


quote: ... Most organizations are at a loss to state precisely what the return on their portal investment is or will be. This How-To Teleconference will highlight the critical issues within the enterprise portal market and introduce META Group's portal ROI methodology, using specific examples to illustrate key benefit areas.
posted by Frank Abrams at 8/9/2001

RedHerring.com | The Angler: Mending the Net


quote: No industry segment was more devastated during the Internet
company shakeout than the so-called Web media space. The 27
publicly owned Web content companies have lost an average of
over 80 percent of their market value since their peaks.
Only Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) makes money, and, except for CNet
(Nasdaq: CNET), it is questionable whether any of the first
generation will ever make it into the black.
posted by Frank Abrams at 8/7/2001

Value & Growth Investing - from eResearch and Stern Stewart & Co.


quote: “Great” Investing

• Great management benchmarks themselves against their cost-of-capital, not actual rates of return in their industry. In sub-par industries we have seen too often management benchmark themselves against their competitors equally sub-par rates of return on capital employed. Misery may love company, but the shareholders shouldn’t have to be satisfied with lousy results.

• Great companies earn returns on capital employed that are consistently above their cost-of-capital. Great cyclical companies do the same over the course of a cycle.

• Great managers do not overcapitalize their balance sheets in order to protect themselves from the vagaries of their markets.

• Great management has significant stock, not just stock options.

• Great companies have management bonuses that are tied to return on capital, EVA®, shareholder rates of return, or similar measures of performance that ties the interests of shareholders and management together. Too often bonuses are discretionary or related to profit figures that have no reference to capital employed or cost-of-capital.

• Great companies do not cap the bonuses of their best managers.

• Great managers have an absolutely clear vision of what they want their company to be, expressed in plain enough terms that the lowliest night watchman can understand what the company’s goals are. This is not a trite subject. We like to follow a simple principle. If after reading a company’s mission statement, we come away with absolutely no idea of what the company does or what it purports to be, stay away.

• Great companies have sustainable long-term franchises that have been tested against their competition and come out successful. Track record speaks volumes relative to promises.

• Great companies dominate their chosen market and have clear plans in place to continue to dominate them.

• Great companies successfully reinvent themselves in the face of adversity when their products/services or markets change to their detriment.

• Great managers manage their companies like they want to own 100% of their market, not just 90%.
posted by Frank Abrams at 7/19/2001

Knowledge@Wharton ROI on IT Investments-


quote: Accounting for these intangible factors is crucial in valuing IT investments. "The greatest danger is the ’concrete’ and ’measurable’ driving the significant out of the analysis," says Eric K. Clemons, a professor of operations and information management at Wharton. "When considering an (e-commerce) strategy it is clear what the costs are; the benefits are less clear." The combination of tangibles and intangibles suggests a pair of gaps managers must face as they evaluate IT investments.
posted by Frank Abrams at 7/18/2001

Valuation on Wall St.


quote: However, Merrill found that one sector actually looked attractive after analysts applied valuation measures that included historical price to sales ratios, forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios and PEG (P/E growth ratios).

Computer stocks, such as those of companies offering customer relationship management software, have proven to be defensive during the technology downturn, explained the analyst.

Long-term contracts that lead to more predictable revenue give computer services companies more visibility than other tech names, explained Mr. Fan.
posted by Frank Abrams at 6/28/2001

The Standard: Hearings Conclude Stock Analysts' Research Is Biased

quote: The "Chinese wall" that is supposed to separate a bank's research arm from its banking arm has crumbled, if not collapsed, it would seem. In order for research to be objective and trustworthy, the activity going on elsewhere in the firm must be completely separate. Written testimony provided for the hearing cited many examples of occasions when such separation simply was not the case. Independent researcher David Tice's testimony included a quote from a former Bear Stearns analyst who, in explaining his reasons for recommending NetBank, said outright: "I put a buy on it because they paid for it. ... They bought it fair and square with two offerings."
posted by Frank Abrams at 6/19/2001

eBanking from UPSIDE TODAY: Round one knockout


quote: In the United States, at least, online banking has largely turned into a new marketing and service-delivery channel for the very banks that the Net-only banks were supposed to challenge.

The numbers sum up the situation. According to Gomez, a Massachusetts-based e-commerce marketing-services company that specializes in financial services, U.S. e-banking customers have increased from 11 million in January 2000 to an estimated 21 million to 22 million in March 2001. But only 4 percent of these online customers have adopted a Net-only bank as their primary bank. The other 96 percent use the Internet channel provided by their existing bank.
posted by Frank Abrams at 6/19/2001

Net shakeout more sweeping than expected - Tech News - CNET.com


According to a recent Jupiter Media Metrix study, 50 percent of online time is spent at sites owned by just four companies: AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Napster. With Napster now almost out of the picture, conectration is significant. Will this spawn a new set of business models and consuer options surrounding the three delivery channels?
posted by Frank Abrams at 6/14/2001

Forrester Research - Press Resources

Is this an early warning? Smart devices, web services and 1 click solutions are coming fast - In our opinion, given the soft economy and the VC / dot com shakeout, short term penetration is overestimated; long term probably underestimated.

posted by Frank Abrams at 6/8/2001

ROI or RIP: E-business during hard times

quote : The dotcom crash and the current economic downturn have forced executives to take a more sober look at their e-business plans, even where enthusiasm for the Internet remains intact. E-business projects must pass the test of rigorous cost-benefit analysis. In this climate, veterans advise pursuing smaller projects with immediate pay-offs as a way to build corporate support for bolder schemes
posted by Frank Abrams at 5/25/2001

ACCPAC Delivers Free XBRL Reporting Capability


quote: ACCPAC Advantage Series XBRL Financials Provides Instant Translation to
Online Standard for Financial Reporting Specifications
PLEASANTON, Calif., May 10, 2001 — ACCPAC International, Inc., a division of the interBiz group of Computer Associates (NYSE: CA), announced today the availability of ACCPAC Advantage Series™ XBRL Financials, a free software add-on that allows companies using ACCPAC Advantage Series General Ledger to export financial reports to an XML-based standard format for Internet business.
posted by Frank Abrams at 5/21/2001

RedHerring.com | Shop Talk: MarchFirst meets its maker


quote: In conversations over the past several months with various Fortune 1,000 executives, I repeatedly hear about their concern for seeing a return on investment for any new technology. These days they haven't seen much ROI, if any, on Web technology, and their patience and willingness to spend have been exhausted.
posted by Frank Abrams at 5/8/2001

CFO networking


quote: As their role becomes increasingly complex, peer gatherings have become a place to pool expertise in such areas as human resources and technology management, get the inside track on regulatory compliance, and bounce new ideas around before presenting them to the CEO.
posted by Frank Abrams at 4/19/2001

Quantify Your IT Investments - Microsoft REJ™ framework

A great foundation to determine the ROI of eBusiness, not just IT investments.

quote: The Microsoft® REJ™ is an economic assessment and measurement framework that helps organizations align IT solutions with business imperatives, and then quantify the direct financial benefits of those solutions. REJ™ was developed in conjunction with key business schools, industry analysts, and with the assistance of Microsoft customers and partners.
posted by Frank Abrams at 4/2/2001

DualGrade Performance Scorecard


Using the CFROI approach, Holt Value and Compustat offer a free web resource for stock analysis - See how your investments rank!
posted by Frank Abrams at 3/28/2001