Processes for Ex-ante Evaluation of IT Projects - Case Studies in Brazilian Companies

Abstract

In the highly competitive nowadays markets, many companies actions assume the project form. In special, Information Technology (IT) projects assume great importance, enabling the dynamic actions that organisations need (Porter, 2001;Tapscott, 2001). However, IT applications assume different roles, from operational support to strategic, according to companies' strategies and operations, besides the peculiarities of the industry in which they compete (McFarlan, 1984;Porter & Millar, 1985). According to this role (appraised by McFarlan's Strategic Grid), ex-ante evaluation practices for selecting IT projects to be implemented can vary (Jiang & Klein, 1999). The objective of this paper is to analyse practices for selecting IT projects in Brazilian companies classified in different quadrants of the Strategic Grid and to observe any differences in ex-ante evaluation practices among them. The adopted methodological approach was qualitative research, more specifically case study (Claver, Gonzalez & Llopis, 2000;Yin, 1991) performed in four companies.