For several years now information technology has been managed as an investment. It is seen not as a cost of doing business, but as a means to improve operations. Information technology and IT systems have become massively expensive in large corporations and especially the U.S. Federal Government, and just buying some software because it seems useful is no longer justifiable. Each IT purchase is now managed as a means to effect organizational change, a way to make the organization perform. The cost is compared not to the system features and functions, but to the improvement in organizational operations and the decreased operations cost or increased revenue that will result.
This approach can be applied to any technology purchase, not just IT.
"If you do anything long enough, you eventually get good at it." MK