Jas
Joined: 11 Mar 2008
Posts: 2
|
|
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:25 pm Post subject: The Elusive ROI in Retail
|
|
|
A recent article by Brett Stoddard, CFO of One Step Retail Solutions, takes a look at retail financial officers playing a lead role in assessing the value of informaiton technology investments for a retail business.
Excerpt from "Finding the Elusive ROI in Retail Information Technology"
"There exists in the world of retail business certain challenges that are as prolific and universal as profit and loss - indeed they are found in one degree or another in every organization, big or small. Yet in the last decade, few have become more pervasive or difficult to predict, quantify, and contain than the total cost of information technology. As retailers strive to solve age old questions regarding marketing, inventory control, and staffing, the answers inevitably result in some form of IT investment.
"Consequently, financial officers are playing a lead role in assessing the value of information technology investments and then measuring the impact of them on their businesses. Yet few CFOs are by nature "technologists," at least not in the purest sense of the word. IT projects can be complex and expensive. And the more complex they are, the more expensive they can become... thus making the ROI seem as elusive as a corporate tax refund.
"With ever tightening budgets in an increasingly competitive economy, many CFOs are looking for IT solutions that side-step the ROI robbing entanglements that can lead to scope creep, missed targets and budget overruns. Application-specific retail systems, built on proprietary foundations that require significant customizations, detailed business analysis and high-dollar hardware are giving way to the latest evolution of "shrink wrapped" or "off-the-shelf" (OTS) software solutions. Such solutions are developed for maximum market compatibility while maintaining critical functionality and they run on less costly Windows-based servers.
"These solutions are generally not only less expensive to purchase and implement, they are also much less expensive to maintain." ...
Read full article...
Text link:
http://onestepretail.com/retail/articles/2009/11/finding-the-elusive-roi-in-retail-information-technology.php
|
|