US Trends

think about the process of zero-based budgeting. what might one drawback of this method be?

One major drawback of zero-based budgeting is that it is very time‑consuming and resource‑intensive, because every expense has to be justified from scratch instead of starting from last year’s numbers.

In practice, this means managers must carefully document and defend each cost item, build detailed justifications, and repeatedly review them with leadership, which can take a lot of hours and staff energy. Over time, that effort can pull attention away from core work like serving customers or improving products, and in larger organizations it can even cause fatigue or frustration with the budgeting process.