Assessing the Total Cost of Ownership of Virtual Communities – The Case of the Berlin Stock Exchange

Brocke J v, Sonnenberg C, Lattemann C, Stieglitz S

Abstract

The usage of social software and virtual community platforms opens up opportunities to bridge the gap between customers and companies and to integrate customers into the value-added process. Ideas generated by members of a virtual community can be utilized to improve and to innovate a company’s value adding activities. However, the implementation and operation of virtual communities may have a considerable impact on financial performance measures of a company. Hence, to measure the profitability of a virtual community appropriately, means of efficiency calculations have to be employed. The objective of this chapter is, therefore, to develop a measurement framework to evaluate the financial performance of a virtual community. The focus is on calculating the total cost of ownership. After introducing a general measurement framework, a particular measurement system is derived from the framework and is subsequently applied to a real life example of the Berlin Stock Exchange.

Keywords
Social Software; Virtual Community; Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); Financial Performance; Web 2.0; Return on Investment (ROI); Virtual Community Platform; Visualization of Financial Implications (VOFI)