what does mutually exclusive mean in finance 
typically this involves budgeting and payments if a company has 180 million to spend it cannot spend that 180 million both by reinvesting in the business and offering bonuses to upper management in this case those two options are mutually exclusive if the company can only retain licensing in a single country that means they should not attempt to be licensed in two separate countries as they are mutually exclusive the bottom linethings that are mutually exclusive are not able to occur simultaneously in business this is typically concerning the undertaking of projects or allocating a budget if two things are not mutually exclusive it means the existence and occurrence of one does not necessarily mean the other cannot coexist 