Marc Wouters

2016

In this paper based on a case study at an international software company I analyze the existing cost allocation system and use an approach from Homburg (2001) to improve the cost driver selection. I implemented the model for a real life situation and found interesting correlations between cost drivers based on Homburgs approach. To improve the quality of the results I added a threshold to the model. With a heat map I found a suitable solution to present the results. Because the analysis of the complexity was not sufficient to solve the problems in the company, in a second step I investigated the interaction between a consumption based cost allocation model for cloud computing and an asset based cost allocation approach for dedicated servers: Which characteristics are important for a cost allocation system to support the move to the cloud? The right assignment of risks and the overhead costs are important factors to improve the interaction between cloud computing and dedicated servers.

KEY WORDS: move to cloud computing, IT infrastructure, cost driver optimization, cost allocation