Columbus Metropolitan Library Essay

Introduction The Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) is one of the most-used and top-ranking library systems in the United States. The library consists of the Main Library and 20 branches located throughout the city of Columbus and Franklin County. Additionally, CML operates jointly in cooperation with partner libraries in central Ohio to share resources and catalog information. As a top-ranking library system, the CML initiative is to update their aging technology infrastructure through modernizing their email server system. As a part of the initiative to modernize, the potential costs and benefits need to be assessed, analyzed, and evaluated to determine whether CML should replace the current Novell GroupWise (Novell) to the Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Exchange) email system. The Return on Investment (ROI) analysis aids with assessing the costs, risks, and benefits of the project to understand whether the project achieves its goals within its expected budget (Dawes, Kelly, Anderson, Bloniarz, Cresswell, & Galvin, 1996). As a result, the complete analysis of the expected cost and returns of the IT investment project determines the appropriate nature of whether CML should implement the change to Microsoft 365 (Cresswell,

In executing the ROI, CML considers the costs and benefits of the implementation of the new system to determine if it’s the appropriate action to take in improving their organization. If the cost of the implementation is greater than the benefits, the CML organization must review other options. However, if the benefits of implementation offset the costs then CML should seriously consider changing their email system to Microsoft 365. As illustrated in the following points, the main objectives of the Microsoft 365 project