Got An Economic Reason For That?

A friend of mine’s a finance cog in a well-oiled corporate megalith.  He recounted a tale to me the other night over a couple of cheekies about how he’d managed to get significant spend signed-off for a pet project of his in the face of strict authority limits.

It serves as a wonderful pointer to how we can promote large-ticket purchases in credit crunch constricting times.

The total cost of the project was such that it required full Board approval.  He enquired of his main Board contact as to whether appetite for such discussion existed.  Evidently the feeling was that there appeared little stomach for it.

Knowing that his sponsor was roughly in favour, he changed tack.  He knew that he could split the project costs up into two separate entities.  As this would then reduce each component part to below the threshold necessitating Board sign-off, perhaps this would be an acceptable way forward.

The Board member was intrigued, but felt that it was all a bit smokes and mirrors.  But then offered this gem of advice:

“Simply splitting the project costs in two isn’t reason enough to keep this off a Board agenda, but, if you have economic reasons that support the split, then that’s a different matter.”

Lo and behold, he could offer several such reasons and the authority went through almost immediately.