ROI stands for Return On Investment and since we believe that computers are a primary driver of business profitability, calculating the cost of acquiring and maintaining IT resources is critical. While we can’t calculate you ROI for you (we don’t even know you yet!), we can list some of the factors you will have to take into consideration when calculating the value of your IT resources:

Category 1 Resources:

• Hardware: You should total the cost of all pieces of equipment including all accessories, installation costs, upgrades, repairs and ongoing maintenance.
• Operating System: Usually this comes with the computer but in some cases you may purchase it separately. You will have to include all licensing fees, upgrade costs and any maintenance costs.
• Applications: Include the purchase cost plus any licensing fees installation and upgrade costs.
• Site cost: Include square footage cost for IT department, internet access, increased security, power management, climate control etc.
• User Training: Training is difficult because formal training is quantifiable but much of the learning done by users takes place on an informal basis. Also the cost of training is directly related to the level and sophistication of computer use in your organization. Make an estimate!
• IT Professionals: For most small and medium sized businesses, this will be the fees paid to the outside computer firms that you have used in the past. Also include the amount of time your employees have spent on installing programs, doing maintenance, solving computer related problems times the cost/hour to the organization plus the lost productivity of that person(s) while they were trying to do the work of a trained IT person..

Category 2 Resources: This is very hard to calculate and any calculation will be a gross estimate but follow this process. Estimate how long each person in your organization spends on a daily basis using the data on your computers. Take that amount, multiply it by their annual wages and multiply that amount by the number of years you have been using your computers in your organization. This will give you some idea of the value of the data in your organization.

Add the values for category 1 and category 2 and you will have a rough idea of the value of your IT resources. I’ll bet the value of your IT resources is a lot more than you thought it was!