You have been asked to assist with preparing for a senior leadership meeting regarding the annual budget. The wish list of projects has been provided by various business units. Your manager has asked you to consolidate the multiple lists into one and determine a way, in additional to ROI, to categorize the wish list that would aid in decision process of which projects to fund. No further recommendations regarding categorization was made you are on your own for this first pass.

Request List

Line of Business	Project	Cost	ROI	Business Case/Value	Category
Corporate Services	HR System Upgade	$ 225,000	1%	Better Information
Corporate Services	Expense System Reporting	$ 115,000	1%	Better Information
Corporate Services	General Ledger Enhancements	$ 120,000	1%	Better Integration
Corporate Services	HR Application Process Automation	$ 375,000	28%	Cut Costs
Corporate Services	Payroll System enhancement	$ 450,000	11%	Cut Costs
Corporate Services	E-mail Records Retention automation	$ 550,000	3%	Cut Costs
Corporate Services	Legal Document Repository	$ 435,000	1%	Cut Costs
Corporate Services	Billing system improvements	$ 425,000	2%	Increase Throughput
Infrastructure	Active Directory Enhancement	$ 125,000	NA	Business Flexibility
Infrastructure	Server Farm Improvement	$ 380,000	NA	Reduce IT Costs
Infrastructure	Recovery System Replacement	$ 355,000	NA	Reduce IT Costs
Infrastructure	Disaster Recovery improvements	$ 750,000	NA	Standardization
Infrastructure	Exchange Server upgrades	$ 350,000	NA	Standardization
Infrastructure	Oracle upgrade	$ 650,000	NA	Standardization
Infrastructure	Dell Server Replacement	$ 690,000	NA	Standardization
Infrastructure	Cloud Pilot	$ 225,000	NA	Standardization
Marketing	Business Intelligence Program	$ 375,000	12%	Increased Sales
Marketing	Social Media Tracking	$ 415,000	8%	Increased Sales
Procurement	Order Tracking System	$ 650,000	14%	Better Information
Procurement	Upgrade Purchasing System	$ 450,000	9%	Better Information
Procurement	Order Management System	$ 160,000	5%	Increased Control
Agencies	Client Profile Upgrade	$ 830,000	4%	Faster Cycle Time
Agencies	New Underwriting System features	$ 625,000	8%	Competitive Advantage
Agencies	Enhanced Performance Reporting	$ 750,000	7%	Competitive Advantage
Agencies	Mobile Enablement	$ 935,000	5%	Competitive Advantage
Corporate Management	Cross LOB Real-time policy premium vs claim analytics	$ 585,000	12%	Better Information
Corporate Management	Reduce Application inventory	$ 175,000	3%	Better Integration

Helpful hints

Question 1 [2 points]: After your initial shock wore off, you recall an article that you read in an MIS class you took at Metropolitan State University with the title of Generating Premium Returns on Your IT Investments by Weill and Aral. From the article, fill in the average percentage allocations for the following investment categories:

Category	Average Percent Allocation
Infrastructure
Transactional
Informational
Strategic
Total	100%

Question 2 [2 points]: Based on an $8.5 million dollar annual budget calculate how many dollars should be allocated to each category:

Category	Budget Allocation in USD
Infrastructure
Transactional
Informational
Strategic
Total	$8,500,000

Question 3 [5 points]: Using the category recommendations from the article Generating Premium Returns on Your IT Investments by Weill and Aral fill in the category column of the Request List, and fill in the category totals in this table as well as the overall total.

Category	Request List totals
Infrastructure
Transactional
Informational
Strategic
Total

Question 4: [8 points] Using APO05 and APO06 propose a four-step process to be used to objectively determine which projects to fund. Be specific and reference management practices.

(Hint: APO06.02, APO06.03, APO05.01, APO05.02, APO05.03, APO05.05 could be important.)

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4: