Factors for Effective Communication of IT Costs and IT Business Value

Nowadays, organizations must invest strategically in information technology (IT) and choose the right digital initiatives to maximize their benefit. Nevertheless, Chief Information Officers still struggle to communicate IT costs and demonstrate the business value of IT. The goal of this paper is to support their effective communication. In focus groups, we analyzed how different stakeholders perceive IT costs and the business value of IT as the basis of communication. We identified 16 success factors to establish effective communication. Hence, this paper enables a better understanding of the perception and the operationalization of effective communication.