How to determine ROI
 
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ROI - return on investment - is one of the hottest acronyms of the past few years. But what does it mean, and how do we measure it?
At its simplest, ROI refers to the ratio of value received to the actual cost over a base period of time. For instance, if you spend $10,000 for a product that replaces 5 people earning $40,000 per year, you'd have a 1 year ROI of (5 x $40,000) / $10,000 or (20/1), which is usually shown as 2000%.
A company called CIOview has developed a large number of automated applications for determining ROI for different systems and programs, some of which are Novell products.
In particular, the CIOview ROI tool for Novell's Single Sign-on (SSO) product is available as a free download at Novell's Web site. SSO is a Novell add-on to NDS/eDirectory, which enables the directory to manage user's multiple passwords and authentications as background tasks so that they only need to know and remember their NDS password. As the product discovers and manages the rest, databases, Web sites, specialty servers and password protected files can all be managed quickly and efficiently by SSO.
SSO is a product many enterprises could use, but at a cost of nearly $50 per user, the expenditure can mount up quickly. Is it worth it? That's why you should use the ROI calculation. It will help you determine if it would be cost effective to implement the software, as well as how long it would take to do so.
After you've tried the free SSO tool you should also take a look at the other ROI tools CIOview offers. Some of these also have a free "quick view" option, so you can try them out. Such tools could be just what you need to enable you to get the technologies that will help lead your enterprise into the 21st century.
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Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. His most recent book is "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks" published by SAMS. Dave's company, Virtual Quill, provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more at Virtual Quill or by e-mail at info@vquill.com
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