Archives for August 2018

We all make mistakes in life. And it does seem that the majority of us make the same money mistakes over and over again. Spending excessively or living beyond our means can quite often leave us in trouble with our finances – it can sometimes come from a wish to impress or just pure carelessness.

Trivial purchases such as daily takeaway coffees, gym memberships we never use, or a magazine you barely read but have been too lazy to cancel the subscription to – it may all seem like nothing at the time, but adding it all up, in the long run, will make a huge difference.

Business consultants love talking about the value triangle. It goes something like this: when businesses procure a product or service, they want it to be high quality, they want it to be fast and they want it to be cheap. MBA lecturers typically put these three parameters at the three points of a triangle and say that a supplier can position itself such that is delivers two, but it will be at the expense of the third. Intuitively, it makes sense:

• Cheap and fast means poor quality
• Cheap and good means you have to wait
• Fast and goodwill are not cheap

The value triangle can be used in other areas of business too, however, such as project management, buildings and infrastructure, and even staffing strategy.