Companies will fight hard to save $50 and not notice they are wasting $5,000 doing it
A cheap tool gets treated like a major budget decision. The request turns into approval hoops, explanations, follow-ups, and waiting
Some might call this "Lean" or "being frugal." But it's actually the opposite. True Lean thinking is about optimizing the flow of value and eliminating waste. When a company creates a $200 process to approve a $50 tool, they aren't being Lean -- they are generating Lean waste.
In a pursuit of "cost-cutting" they create massive overhead in waiting and overprocessing. The real cost shows up in: - Lost momentum (the team stops moving while waiting for a SaaS login) - Context switching (engineers filling out finance forms instead of coding) - Manager touchpoints (expensive hours spent in "alignment" meetings) - Delayed output
Most companies think that they overspending. But in reality they are overpaying for buying friction
If your control process costs more than the asset itself, you aren't saving money, you’re subsidizing inefficiency
Have you personally faced such behavior from a company in your career?