eServices Business Value Assessment and its Methods and Metrics used among the Companies (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1, University of Vienna (Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre), course: E-Business, language: English, abstract: The era of information technologies (hereafter IT) has lead to a shift from exchanging goods to services and at the same time to a tremendous increase of companies operating in the field of electronic business. As continuous changes of the environment take place in this field, it is crucial for the companies to come up with new technologies and solutions on a regular basis (Oliveira et al. 2002). This complex condition leads to on-going development, adaptation and maintenance of eServices, which are seen as a central part of any electronic business activity due to their contribution to interactivity, connectivity, increase of customer satisfaction as well as mass customization (Sheth and Sharma 2007). Succeeding in these mentioned tasks guarantees long-term benefits for the companies, helps them to achieve their stated targets, as well as to retain a strong competitive advantage, which is of a great importance.

However, eServices need to be managed properly in order to really be a benefit for the company. One of these fundamental management tasks includes the continuous business value assessment of eServices, which is not only suitable for the calculation of the business value, but is also able to indicate, whether the eService contributes to the achievement of the company's key performance indicators and how well it performs. The assessment of eServices business value is conducted using appropriate methods and metrics, which lies the midpoint of this Master thesis examination.