Cost, Speed & Quality – Why You Can Never Get 3 Attributes?

In project management, the triangle concept between Cost, Speed and Quality is pretty known. Many may have heard of it as the Unattainable Triangle or Golden Triangle. The question of whether it is possible to get all three attributes in balance within a project still remains unresolved as many would claim that it is not.

Trade Off Between Cost, Speed & Quality of Website

In this article, we will take as an example Web Design projects to help us better understand what this idea in the trade off between Cost, Speed and Quality is.

web design brainstorming
However, the concept can be applied to all project management disciplines, whether delivering a good or service, as we face this challenge together. OR can this challenge ever be tackled?

Call Us Now

The general conception of consumer products or services today is the cheaper something is the lower the quality and vice versa. If a product or service is more expensive, it must be better quality. As a website designer, clients would assume the same. If you are charging a client at a cheaper price than a competitor the assumption would be that your work is not as great. Most often, charging less for your work will also mean you would require more jobs to sustain your competitive advantage and therefore the speed of work must be done faster. Clearly, we are able to see the trade-off between the three attributes – Cost, Speed and Quality. When trying to balance all three components to provide the best possible solution to suit our clients it becomes tough. Maybe, it even involves a little bit of convincing and trust you require of your clients in your work.

As a client/consumer or the service provider, the unattainable triangle has a stigma to cause a lot of headache and stress in the production of work. In the competitive markets, whether in digital marketing (SEM, SEO, Social Media Marketing), manufacturing, engineering etc. we all want to be the best of the best. However, if we look at the concept as a fact where we will never be able to achieve a balance between all three components, maybe we can get closer to working around it and still being able to satisfy customers.

the equation between time, cost and quality
 

Are you willing to offer a cheap web design service?

It comes down to: Are you wanting to offer a cheap website design to target more customers in the market that can afford your service? Or do you prefer to have a reputation of the quality of your web design?

Due to the association between cost and quality, consumers are convinced that you pay more for better quality work. Depending on how you position yourself in the market and what you value as a company will determine which attribute to focus more heavily on. For the best outcome, consumers would want to purchase products and services that can give them a balance of all three. However, we must also never lose sight of our own value and efforts.

happy clients of iclick media
 

To be good at what we do, it is acceptable to charge a higher price for the quality of our work. It is a give and take between staying truthful in determining the worth of our work, what is a reasonable length of time to take to produce it and whether consumers are accepting of that.

Need a second opinion to get a relatively affordable web design service in Singapore? Drop us an email here!

Call Us Now