I've told this story before, but I worked for an ISP that was obsessed with things like CAPEX vs. OPEX and staffing vs. outsourcing (they always mixed those two for some reason, even if I'd say that buying consultants and salaries are both OPEX). In any case, it resulted in outsourcing 50% of development to a another company, at twice the cost, then keeping those consultants on for a decade. The saving, had they hired instead would have been massive. The reasoning was: Well we can fire the consultants in within two weeks... sure but you can fire staff within a month or two. Six months at the most. Right now you're just announcing that you suck at long term planning.

At one point they were convinced that the operations team was horrible inefficient and outsourcing would be cheaper (they'd already pulled operations back from IBM, because IBM is expensive and incompetent). Luckily someone decides to get some other consultants involved and actually measure the inefficiencies, before taking action, so the savings made from outsourcing the team (again) would be more clear. They didn't expect to be told that they had one of the speediest, leanest and most efficient operations teams in the country.

Same company handed out 20% raises one year and the next we were apparently almost broke. Then no on wanted to work there, because there were no prospects of a raise in the future, so they started hiring new people at MUCH higher starting salaries. They'd start people out on the salary levels you'd expect to reach after 5-8 years, so they would avoid having to budget in raises.

At some point companies just get top heavy with incompetent business types, who doesn't tend to stick around, at least not in the same role for to long. They forget the past and start their playbook, which always happens to be the reverse of what happened two years ago.