click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' HomepageThe justification of investments in technologies whose benefits are not easily quantifiable in monetary terms has long been a problem. This paper describes a strategic justification methodology which specifically considers long-term strategic costs and benefits, along with more standard financial considerations. This methodology, titled Strategic Justification of Enterprise Technology (SJET), utilizes a matrix approach based on the Quality Function Deployment technique to strategically and operationally link the technology under consideration to the enterprise. Techniques such as the analytic hierarchy process, weighting schemes, and utility functions are used to build a model of the decision-makers' preferences. The methodology was developed through the use of "customer teams," consisting of potential users of the methodology, along with domain experts in justification techniques to ensure the methodology's applicability to real-life problems. This paper discusses the motivation for the methodology, the development process, and the methodology itself. An illustrative example is included.
click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' Homepage