The acquisition of new IT systems is expensive and risky. Systems often fail to provide the expected services, or may commit an organisation to a particular long-term solution to its information management needs which can be very costly to change. The purpose of this research was to help organisations to manage the IT acquisition process with greater chances of success. In this research 'Acquisition of IT' means the whole process of initiating, implementing and then using an information technology system. The approach taken was to identify success factors for IT acquisition. A large number of actual acquisition cases were examined, and a list was compiled of factors reported by people involved in these cases to affect their success or otherwise. The relative importances of these factors were then measured quantitatively by correlating the degree to which each factor was present in the cases, with the degree of success of the cases. This work has produced: a comprehensive list of factors to be considered; a method of defining what is meant by success for a given project; a description of the acquisition project lifecycle; and an identification of the different roles played by different people within an organisation. It is shown how to integrate these considerations into a structured approach to managing IT acquisitions. This integrated approach is called the Success Map. Three mini case studies were included, and one of these was analysed in the light of the findings. In a supplementary section, fifteen guiding principles for people involved in an IT acquisition are presented.

Climate change has been a topic for discussion in the IT industry. The IT (information technology) sector has been regarded as one of the contributing sectors towards climate change due to carbon emissions from IT equipment such as computers and servers. Environmental concerns are gaining incremental attention from organisations across the globe. Green IT is seen as part of the solution to this problem and has been defined and discussed by many researchers. The purpose of this study was to investigate Green IT practices that have been adopted in the NWPG (North West Provincial Government). The study focused on the three departments which fall under one central IT section in the department of the provincial treasury. A quantitative study was conducted in Mafikeng and questionnaires were distributed to collect the data and it was found that although end-users in the government sector are aware of Green IT, many still needed a lot of training on Green IT. The research concludes by suggesting strategies that might be adopted to improve IT use in the government sector. / Thesis (M.Com.(Information Systems) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2014