INVESTMENT PROCESSES OR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES INVESTMENT EVALUATION. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION PRACTICES IN THE SME: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN ANDALUCÍA

From our point of view, we consider that evaluation is another aspect of the IT implementation process, which permits us to justify the investment to be carried out, to choose between different alternatives, to serve as an instrument of control over the implementation process, over its costs and benefits and, in short, over the success of the project. However, there are in practice some difficulties in evaluating all of the costs and benefits associated to IT investments, and especially in the long term prospect. Moreover, the evaluation constitutes an aspect that, in economic crisis situations and in the context of SMEs, acquires, if one might say so, more importance. Therefore, in this work we intend to find out how Andalusian SMEs carry out their IT investment process, which will permit us to contribute empirical evidence of the evaluation practices of IT projects in this type of enterprises, which haven't been sufficiently researched in the empirical studies carried out concerning the evaluation of the IT investments, where it seems that the evaluation is associated with high IT budgets, large enterprises and large IT investment projects.