Financial Management

About Michael Blackstaff

Michael Blackstaff is a chartered accountant and a member of British Computer Society. He has finance, marketing and training experience in the IT industry and customers in many industries. He was a financial marketing specialist with IBM United Kingdom Limited, developing business projects, selling leasing, teaching salespeople the finance of selling and advising customers accounting for IT.

Introduction

For most organisations, the objective of investments in information technology (IT) or the engineering of new software solutions is to improve their performance. Ultimately, and especially in business organisations, that means to improve their financial performance. In my experience, most people called upon to make decisions about IT belong in one of two categories:

In Category (1) are those who know a lot about IT or engineering of new software solutions, but little or nothing about finance. They may be confused by financial jargon, and they often do not have access to professional financial help. Despite this, they are often required to get involved in business and financial matters - making or interpreting business cases, for example.

In Category (2) are those who know a lot about finance but rather less about IT. They may be confused by IT jargon and, despite being financially trained, may be unaware of some of the particular characteristics of IT which stretch the normal rules of finance and accounting beyond their natural limits – accounting for software, for example.

I have been pleased to work with Monetical on their approach, which I believe to be unique, and I commend contribution to helping organisations make more businesslike decisions about IT.” Michael Blackstaff, January 2008.

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