Lightweight IT investments: Factors influencing Profitability: A study of how IT implementation influence profitability in Norwegian companies

Abstract

Several projects are underperforming due to a lack of return from IT investments, resulting in low profitability. The thesis seeks to uncover whether the absence of value creation applies today and for investments in lightweight IT. It elaborates on different factors possibly improving profitability and challenges previous research. In addition, the thesis investigates whether benefit realization management (BRM) leads to better results within lightweight IT projects. The theoretical framework provides insight into lightweight IT projects and BRM and derives equations for measuring profitability. Our focus is on how the profitability of the customers of the start-up company RPA Supervisor has developed due to the implementation of their software. The software automates monitoring, managing, and orchestrating a company’s digital workforce, i.e., their robots. The customers’ profitability is investigated by evaluating the technology’s benefits and risks. We performed a structured interview of the customers of RPA Supervisor to gain insight into viewpoints regarding their experience of the software and benefit realization. Furthermore, to answer our research question, the profitability development was investigated through a comparative analysis that addressed and analyzed factors that influence profitability. The results were examined in light of the development in profitability and the use of AI in Norwegian companies. The analysis revealed that the implementation of the RPA Supervisor software leads to benefits such as improved supervision and performance of the digital workforce. In addition, we found that the most prominent risks were discrepancies in performance and general errors. The discussion exposed that the positive effects of the benefits were high and that the risks were low. Moreover, we discovered that using BRM is unnecessary to achieve more benefits. Finally, we proposed a greater focus on business value than financial parameters when implementing new IT software. Although our findings could not determine with certainty how large the change in profitability has been, we concluded that a marginal change in benefits leads to a development in profitability.