In a whitepaper outlining their plan, the partners argue that IT complexity can prove a serious problem for firms, generating inefficiencies and costs.

Yet the issue is generally handled by CIOs and CTOs based on past experience, intuition, trial and error and financial analysis rather than quantitative techniques.

The pair say that by introducing a model they hope to enable better management of complexity by allowing CIOs to quantify and articulate short-and long-term implications of initiatives, costs over time, impacts on existing operations and the business as a whole, as well as strategic implications and justifications for high-risk projects.

Currently in the first stage of its development, the model is focused on IT applications and has been statistically validated by both Commerzbank and academia on 1000 applications over three years.

Other firms are being selected for participation in the project, with the additional data increasing the model's precision.

Peter Leukert, CIO, Commerzbank, says: "We believe that a complexity metric could substantially aid the CIO in decision making and we are well on the way to developing and applying such a metric. Commerzbank is very pleased to be working with Capco on this ground-breaking initiative."