Editor’s Notes: How to spend it

When making purchases for both technology- and business-change projects, it is worth considering the economist Milton Friedman’s statement on the different ways of spending money and their relative efficiencies. There are only four ways of spending money. The first and most efficient is to spend your own money on yourself – it’s your own money so you want value for money and you know exactly what you want. The second is to use your money on someone else (e.g. a birthday present) – you still want value but you’re less worried about what you actually buy. The third way is to spend someone else’s money on yourself (e.g. your expenses) – value is less of a concern but at least you get what you want. Finally, the fourth and least efficient way of spending is to use someone else’s money on somebody else, in which case you’re neither concerned about price nor about what you get. And that last category is where your business and technology budgets sit.