What do you think are the most important
TLAs in technology?
Do you think it is SOA since we all are interested in decoupled services? or EAI or ESB?
If you think it is ERP, you are kinda outdated. What about JVM, JRE...I could go on.
But really the two most important TLAs we as technologist need to remember are TCO and ROI. Yes, these are not really technical you say, but hear me out.
We are in business technology. The goal of a business is to make $$$ (and on the way help out on good causes). Technology helps business in two ways, either your revenue model is based on the technology or technology enables you to run your business efficiently and cost effectively, thus adding to the bottom line.
So, here are the basics:
TCO - Total Cost of Ownership (sometimes it is used as Total Cost of Operations), as a name explains gives an idea on what the total cost of ownership of a particular product or technology is. This should include the upfront investments (hardware, software), people cost, process costs and maintenance, growth, support and upgrade costs. Last but not the least, what will an organization spend to get out of a particular technology i.e. the migration costs in the future or retire it in the future.
ROI - Return on Investment. Now that you know your TCO, what is the this technology giving back to the business. For a CRM system, can you quantify how much more $ your sales force generate in revenues and how much time they will save by streamlining their processes? If you cannot quantify your returns, than go back to your sponsors and ask them for the drivers for this technology investment.