This search is a VERY important one, and does not yield the correct answer, which is in itself an indictment of information technology.
The correct answer is NEGATIVE, and Paul Strassmann, former Director of Defense Information, is the person who established this fact for the top corporations, although he likes to soft-shoe it and say neutral or negative. NOT positive. There is no Return on Investment (RoI) for information technology in and of itself. He first disclosed this in his keynote luncheon presentation at OSS '96, and then published a book. Both links are below. Paul Strassmann is one of our heroes–he has NOT been listened to carefully enough, and is in our little black book as a “must have” advisor for any future Information Operations (IO) “break-out” but only if he signs a non-compete and forgoes any association with any of the vendors selling vapor-ware (which is to say, all of them).
1996 Strassmann (US) U.S. Knowledge Assets: Choice Traget for Information Crime
Review: Information Productivity–Assessing Information Management Costs of U. S. Corporations
In Case of DoD Specifically:
2006 General Accountability Office (GAO) Defense Acquisitions DoD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid
2002 The New Craft of Intelligence–What Should the T Be Doing to the I in IT?
Graphic: Tony Zinni on 4% “At Best”
Graphic: Jim Bamford on the Human Brain
Journal: Return on Investment Missing from IT World
Journal: Systems Design & “Reverse Innovation”
Journal: Bees’ tiny brains beat computers
Journal: National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Goes from Dumb to Dumber
Review: The Politics of Information Management–Policy Guidelines
Review: Business Value of Computers
Returns to the Raw Search Here
Selected Items for the Raw Search:
Journal: Underpants Bomber Saved Worthless NCTC
Journal: CIA Leads the “Walking Dead” in USA
Journal: Director of National Intelligence Alleges….
Reference: Retired CIA officer–Fix the Agency
Review: Willful Neglect–The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security
Supplementation Observations:
First, the better search term is Return on Investment vice Return of Investment.
Second, information systems is good, information technology is also good–both fail to yield a proper return on investment because no one is doing end-user functional requirements, everyone has forgotten how to write a proper Statement of Work and the equally important Evaluation Criteria, and when flooded with funny money, managers throw money, not brains, at the problem. Vendors oblige. The National Security Agency, the National Counterrorism Center, and Cyber-Security are classic examples of failure to think before hand, to define needed outcomes (e.g. warning in all languages all the time), and to provide for PROCESSING of what is collected. In the case of the NCTC, the continued existence of 80+ unintegrated databases (so much for semantic web) is the truth teller. DIA is just as bad, CIA even worse because they don't even try. The “legacy” base is HOSED. As General Hayden observed, anytime he wanted to close a compartment down, the only person who could brief him on it was the Program Manager who would lose everything if he did. DoD and CIA “compartments” are like Wall Street derivatives–largely fraudulent, 90% turf protection and avoidance of oversight.
