1、1 / 24How Financial Firms Decide on Technology，介紹國際大銀行在決定對信息技術投資時的考慮要點和他們具體的實施過程。How Financial Firms Decide on Technology( Abstract )The financial services industry is the major investor ininformation technology(IT) in the U.S. economy; thetypical bank spends as much as 15% of non-intereste expenses

2、 onIT. A persistent finding of research into the performance of financialinstitutions is that performance and efficiency vary widely acrossinstitutions.Nowhere isthis variability more visible than in the outcomes of the IT investmentdecisions in these institutions. This paper presents the results of

3、 anempirical investigation of IT investment decision processes in thebanking industry. The purpose of this investigation is to uncover what,if anything, can be learned from the IT investment practices of banksthat would help in understanding the cause of thisvariability in performanee along with poi

4、nting toward2 / 24man ageme nt practices that lead to better in vestme ntdeeisi ons. Using PC banking and the developme nt ofcorporate Internet sites as the case studies for thisin vestigatio n, the paper reports on detailed field-basedsurveys of in vestme nt practices in several lead ingin stituti

5、onsHow Finan cial Firms Decide on Tech no logy(Part One )信息技術對金融服務業的阻礙正在增加，不僅僅表現在銀行的15%無息開支上，而且對金融服務業的運做和戰略也有專門強的阻礙。一個對金融機構的長期研究表明，不同的機構的效率和表現也不同。其決定的因素有以下一些其中的一個因素確實是對投資的決定和治理。SBS 是 一個失敗的例子，然而成功的公司也許多。本文注重解答以下的問題：1.銀行對IT投資的評估和治理過程？2.在對IT的治理過程中，理論和實際操作的結合如何？3.IT投資的治理和銀行性能的關系如何？1.0 In troductionIn fo

6、rmati on tech no logy(IT) is in creas in gly criticalto the operations of financial services firms. Today banksspend as muchas 15%of non-interestexpense on informationtechnology. It is estimated that the industry will spend at least $21.1billion on IT in 1998, and financial institutions collectively

7、 account forthe majority of IT investment in the U.S. economy. In additon to being alarge component of the cost structure, information technology has a3 / 24strong influence on financial firms operatons and strategy. Fewfinancial products and services exist that do not utilize computers atsome point

8、 in the delivery process, and a firmsinformation systemsplace strong constraints on the type of products offered, the degree ofcustomization possible and the speed at which firms can respond tocompetitive opportunities or threats.A persistent finding of research into the performance of financialinst

9、itutions is that performance and efficiency varies widely acrossinstitutions, even after controlling for factors such as size(scale),product breadth(scope), branching behavior and organizationalform(e.g. stock versus mutual for insurers; banks versus saving &loans). Given the central role that techn

10、ology plays in these institutions,at least some of this variation is likely to be due to variations in theuse andeffectiveness of IT investments. While some authors haveargued that the value of IT investment has been insignificant,particularly in services, recent empirical work has suggested that IT

11、investment, on average, is a productive investment. Perhaps moreimportantly, there appears to be substantial variation across firms;some firms have very high investments but are poor performers,while otheres invest less but appear to be much more successful.Brynjolfsson and Hitt found that as much a

12、s half the returns to ITinvestment are due to firm specific factors.One potentially important driver ofdifferences in ITvalue, and of firm performance more broadly, is likely to be thedecision and managementpeocessed for IT investments. Horrorstories of bad IT investment decisions abound. Consider t

13、he exampleof the new strategic banking system(SBS) at Banc One(AmericanBanker 1997). Banc One Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp.agreed last year to end their joint development of this retail bankingsystem after spending an estimated $175 million on it. As stated inthe American Banker article, S

14、BSwas just so overwhelming and socomplete that by the time they were getting to market, it was going totake too long to install 4 / 24the whole thing, said Alan Riegler, principal in Ernst &Youngs financial services managementconsulting division. However,not all the stories are negative. New IT syst

15、ems are playing a vital rolein reshaping the delivery of financial services. For example, newcomputer-telephony integration(CTI) technologies are transformingcall center operations in financial institutions. By investing intechnology, more and more institutions are moving operations fromhigh-cost br

16、anch operations to the telephone channel,where the costper transaction is one-tenth the cost of a teller interaction. This ITinvestment not only reduces the cost of serving existing customers,but also extends the reach of the institution beyond its traditionalgeographic boundaries.In this paper, we

17、utilize detailed case studies of six retail banksto investigate several interrelated questions:1.What processes do banks utilize to evaluate andmanage IT investments?2.How well do actual practices align with theoretical argumentsabout how IT investments should5 / 246 / 24be managed?3.What impact doe

18、s that management of IT investmentshave on performance?How Financial Firms Decide on Technology(Part Two )For the first question, we develop a structured framework forcataloging IT investment practices and then populate this frameworkusing a combination of surveys and semi-structured interviews.Weth

19、en compare the results of this exercise with a synthesis of theliterature on IT decision making to understanding how practices varyacross firms and the extent to which this is consistent with bestpractices as described in previous literature. Finally, we will comparethese processes to internal and e

20、xternal performance metrics to betterunderstand which sets of practices appear to be most effective.To makethese comparisons concrete, we examine both thegeneral decision process as well as the specific processes used fortwo recent IT investment decisions :the adoptionof computer-based home banking

21、(PC banking), and the developmentof the corporate website. These decisions were chosen because they7 / 24were recent and are related but provide some contrast; in particular,PC banking is a fairly well defined product innovation, while thecorporate web presence is more of an infrastructure investmen

22、t whichis less well-defined in terms of objectives and business ownership.Overall, we find that while some aspects of the decision processare fairly similar across institutions and often conform to bestpractice as defined by previous literature, there are several areaswhere there is large variation

23、in practice among the banks andbetween actual and theoretical best practice. Most banks have astrong and standardized project management for ongoing systemsprojects, and formal structures for insuring that line-managers andsystems people are in contact at the initiation of technology projects.At the same time, many banks have relatively weak processes(bothformal and informal) for identifying new IT investment opportunities,allocating resources across organizational lines, andfunding exploratory or inf rastructure projects with long term or uncerta in payoffs.The remin der of this paper is o