I’ve ragged on this for 20+ years to anyone that would listen. The problem with most companies is that they let the bean counters run them, and the bean counters are present oriented.
An example: the was a local factory that, to make their profits look good at corporate, made no investments in equipment. They were a liquid chemical factory with lots of piping that was literally duct taped together. They constantly did a boom bust as they fixed their machines just enough to do a big production run and then they’d blow something and be down.
Old manager finally retires, new manager comes in. He sees how threadbare things are - and very dangerous - and commits capital to upgrading. Corporate is ticked, profits are down, they question his job, and he finally explains that ‘profits were so good because my predecessor spent no money for upkeep’. He kept his job only because they weren’t OSHA spec and a major work hazard that HAD to be fixed.
Typical American corporate thinking. We don’t understand that investment and innovation is leverage and the present value is greater than if there were none all, even if it requires an up front hit to profit.
It’s hard to focus on the long term when you are a CEO that plans to pump up your stock options, cash out and move on in a couple of years to the next sucker.