A Framework for Calculating Total Cost of Ownership of Information Systems

More and more organizations are being run dependent on information systems. This makes information systems a pivotal component of our lives. Because of globalization and harsh competition, strategic cost management has become essential to gain or keep competitive advantage. These two trends make calculation of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of information systems crucial. To this end, a TCO calculation framework, which can be extended according to the requirements of an organization, is presented in this study. Thus, it is aimed to support engineers to develop cost-effective information systems and/or to apply different solutions to reduce costs of existing systems. A validity check has been done with a case study, which describes the use of the framework in an international company and provides an example of how to extend the framework