Complementary Investment in Change Management and IT Investment Payoff

Abstract

Measuring information technology payoff continues to be a challenge for organizations. Considering the impact of complementary investments on IT payoff has been proposed by recent studies. This paper examines the impact of one type of complementary investment on IT payoff: organizational change management initiatives to support IT implementation. The paper reports a case study of Cisco Systems' IT investment in an operating systems upgrade of over 34,000 computer systems in 117 countries. The findings of the exploratory case study indicate that planned communications and change management strategies developed by their Organizational Change Management group led to the smooth implementation of the upgrade process and contributed to the payoff from the IT investment, measured in terms of client satisfaction with the process and system and reduced cost and time to upgrade all systems. The findings were supported by pre- and post-implementation surveys of clients, analysis of the change management initiatives and their impact on the process, and comparison of actual and budgeted costs for the project.