Corporate Appraisal

October 25, 2007

A Corporate appraisal of the enterprise’s current strength and weakness is an important first step in the planning process. It provides an opportunity to critically examine established beliefs, operations and practices.

The major aspects of a corporate appraisal are:-

Trends of results:

The organization historical pattern of performance i.e. it should cover profit, sales, capital employed as well as other financial ratios that can be used to measure efficiency and performance. It gives the overall picture whether the organization is declining or improving. A declining company may impose tighter constraints on developments and may expect quicker returns.

Risk

This is the examination of the risk associated with the organization’s source of profit e.g. if they are dependent on one product or a few clients or suppliers. Thus effective Information systems is critical to such high risk markets, in that the damaging effect of detrimental changes can be quickly identified and corrective action done.

Organisation and Management

Assessment of the organization’ structure, culture and management should be done so that the analyst can know how changes will affect and be viewed by employees.

Financial Resources

This involves organization’s capital, resources and current project cash flow. This issue affects the economic feasibility in that it determines how the system development is funded.