Insights on strategy, websites, UX, and digital growth

Indecision is one of the most expensive habits in business. It doesn’t appear on a balance sheet, and no one ever files a loss report for “the project we never started,” but it quietly drains momentum, opportunity, and competitive advantage.

When decisions drift

In complex digital projects, clarity matters. If a decision isn’t obvious or already felt internally, waiting rarely makes it clearer. Long sales cycles often stretch out because the decision doesn’t feel urgent, or the value isn’t fully understood, or the fear of cost and risk creates hesitation.
And when a decision drifts, projects stall. Momentum fades. Ideas go stale. The space for meaningful work narrows by the week. If something is genuinely a no brainer but remains stuck, it’s usually a sign that either the value hasn’t been articulated well, or the business isn’t ready to commit. Keeping that decision open for months rarely leads anywhere useful.

Why people delay decisions

Leaders often sit with a decision long after they’ve already made it quietly in their own mind. Worry about spend. Uncertainty about outcomes. A sense that perhaps next quarter will feel safer. But digital projects that genuinely move the needle rely on time.

These kinds of solutions resolve operational pain, remove friction, improve sales performance, or help a brand stand out in a crowded market. They need scoping, design, technical planning, build, testing, rollout. Delay eats into the runway needed to do the work properly.

Questions that reveal the true cost

A few simple questions can give clarity...

• If I had made this decision six, twelve, or eighteen months ago, where would the business be today?
• What has the delay actually cost me?
• What pain or inefficiency am I still tolerating because I didn’t act?
• If I don’t do this now, when will I?
• Is this protection, or avoidance?

When delay forces compromise

The consequences of hesitation show up most clearly when deadlines are fixed. A business wants a new platform for a major event, or a sales system ready for a specific season. But the decision comes three or six months before the required date, leaving no time to scope or build the original vision.

The result is compromise. A reduced version. A cut-back feature set. A solution that works, but doesn’t deliver the leap the business hoped for. And when the results are middling, it can reinforce the idea that digital projects don’t deliver, when in reality the timeline never allowed them to.

The platform-hopping trap

Many businesses follow the same cycle. They try a generic platform. Then a workaround. Then a cheaper alternative that still doesn’t fit. By the time they reach a team that can build what they actually need, the remaining timeline is tight, and ambition has to shrink.

Meanwhile, the organisations that commit early, invest properly, and protect the process often go on to scale, dominate their space, or exit for significant figures. Success isn’t accidental. It’s the compound effect of making the call early enough to give the idea room.

If not now, when?

If something is important, will clearly move the business forward, and is financially within reach, then the real risk lies in delay, not action.
Indecision costs more than the project ever will. And every month the decision sits unresolved, the window for meaningful results gets smaller.

If not now, when?