Web Projects, Infrastructure and Value Propositions

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, financial services firms continue to struggle with methods to determine the value of infrastructure and, more importantly, Web-based projects. Simple infrastructure is the backbone of an organization providing financial services, and the cost of infrastructure is often difficult to attribute to a single business unit, function or product. Traditional cost justification of infrastructure as a single investment event with a predetermined return on investment can be regarded, under certain business conditions, as a waste of time. The business agility and rapid market entrance displayed by many dot-corn companies demonstrated that larger organizations engaged in a process of business case justification, and many times annulled any potential savings once the cost of the justification process was factored into the return on investment equation. The problem existed because the process itself continually hindered the ability to get to the market quickly. The strategic approach to infrastructure is to embrace the concept that corporations cannot exist without infrastructure. It is a question of asking how much infrastructure is necessary. Specifically, it is a problem of what level of infrastructure is required to deliver a basic financial product, a superior product or a competitive product.