AlphaICP.Magrassi, “The AlphaIC Method: Assessing the Business Impact of IT in the Knowledge Economy”, Proceedings 12th European Conference on Information Technology Evaluation, Turku, Finland, 29–30 September 2005. is a method for assessing the value of

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

(IT) investments that surpasses banal ROI analyses and looks at how IT affects an organization's

intellectual capital Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people ( human capital), the value rela ...

. The methodology was developed in 2003-2004 by technologist

Paolo Magrassi Paolo Magrassi is an Italian technologist known as one of the authors of the Supranet concept, the co-creator of the AlphaIC methodology for assessing the value of information technology expenditures, and the manager of the Pontifex project, whic ...

and economist Alessandro Cravera, based on the observation of two ongoing trends: * On one side, research on the information technology (IT) '

productivity paradox The productivity paradox, also referred to as the Solow paradox, could refer either to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the sa ...

’ and the quantitative assessment of IT’s impact as a

general purpose technology General-purpose technologies (GPTs) are technologies that can affect an entire economy (usually at a national or global level). GPTs have the potential to drastically alter societies through their impact on pre-existing economic and social structur ...

. This was mainly stimulated by

Erik Brynjolfsson Erik Brynjolfsson (born 1962) is an American academic, author and inventor. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and a Senior Fellow at Stanford University where he directs thDigital Economy Labat the Stanford Institute for Human-Cen ...

’s works in 1998-2002; * On the other side, research and practitioners’ work on

intangible asset An intangible asset is an asset that lacks physical substance. Examples are patents, copyright, franchises, goodwill, trademarks, and trade names, as well as software. This is in contrast to physical assets (machinery, buildings, etc.) and finan ...

s (a.k.a. a company's ‘

’ ), such as that by Karl-Erik Sveiby at Skandia AV in 1986, Baruch Lev at NYU's Stern in 1996, and Cravera in 1999–2000.A. Cravera, M. Maglione, R. Ruggeri, “La valutazione del capitale intellettuale. Le risorse intangibili“, Edizioni Il Sole 24 Ore, Milano, 2000 The two trends were merged in order to develop a ‘value of IT’ assessment methodology that go beyond simple return on investment (ROI) analyses as well as other existing methodologies, all unable to capture the true advantage provided by IT. The methodology is copyrighted, however a simple and concise description, including that of its application in real-world organizations, is to be found in.

References

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