Delivering new revenue today is extremely easy and too often overrated.

Delivering new revenue today, without negatively affecting future revenue, is what drives a business to be successfull.

So very true. In many big and stable companies executives have a budget to spend. And it's not their money anyway. I've even been told to spend some money because it has been budgeted already for the year. If I don't spend it we'll get less the next year. Hence I should bend over to find a way to spend it despite it being a waste of money!

There are a lot of things that fall under "new revenue" that aren't healthy. I've seen managers lose money in expenses to put "new revenue" on their group's balance sheets, because they come out ahead due to capitalized expenses. Of course, it creates a vicious cycle to make more revenue each year to keep ahead of your expenses, and pretty soon you abandon strategic projects in the pursuit of quarterly tactical revenue.