Development of value analysis and features of ITS application in software products design

At present moment, the processes of digitalization and informatization of all spheres of human life and society are rapidly gaining momentum. Of course, many factors influence them. Nevertheless, they are based on the development of the hardware (technical) component along with the development and implementation of software. The rapid growth of information and communication technologies (ICT), as well as the development of the digital economy and e-business, in turn led to an increase of the employees in this sector in the national economies across the world. Particular attention should be paid to the problems of organizing business processes in companies operating in the field of information technology (IT), as well as the economic justification of managerial decisions and evaluation of their effectiveness. To date, the science and practice of management has developed a set of theoretical and methodological approaches to solving the above problems, which, of course, can be successfully used in the practice of managing IT companies. It is known that the management of IT companies uses the well-proven tools of lean manufacturing, 6 sigma, Gantt charts, Ishikawa charts, etc. At the same time, there are a number of techniques (for example, functional cost analysis (or value analysis, VA)) that have not received proper distribution in IT-companies, despite the fact that they have serious potential for conducting a feasibility study. This article attempts to review the history of the creation and development of the VA in the USA and the USSR. Further, on the one hand, the possibilities of using such a tool as the VA in the management of IT companies are shown, and, on the other hand, due to the current terminological inconsistencies, the legitimacy of using the conceptual and categorical apparatus, which belongs to the subject area of the VA, is analyzed. We are talking about the following terms: “functional-cost analysis”, “cost analysis”, “elemental analysis”, “cost engineering”, “cost management”. The results of the study allow us to state the expediency of using the VA tools in the development of software products.