Every organisation has to manage costs. Financial discipline matters and there are times when spending genuinely needs to slow.

The challenge comes when the end of the financial year becomes an annual exercise in docking the ship. Overtime is stopped, recruitment pauses, purchases are delayed, supplier payments slip and service is deliberately constrained to protect this year's numbers.

The immediate savings are easy to measure, but the opportunities lost are far harder to see. Revenue isn't generated, customers wait longer, projects grind to a halt and operational momentum fades.

The irony is that success is normally measured by the costs deferred, whilst the value sacrificed goes largely unnoticed. Sometimes the most expensive saving is the one that improves this year's P&L whilst silently compromising next year's performance.