In today’s market many face the challenge of having to cut costs. Some react with a knee-jerk “slash-and-burn” response, which has an immediate but short-term effect, bringing few savings in the long run. Others can’t tell which costs are necessary and which are not—the difference between “muscle” and “fat”.
The clever ones think about the real cost roots and drivers in the wider context of efficiency. They want to achieve sustainable savings by integrating cost reduction into business strategy.
Long before this latest financial crisis, PricewaterhouseCoopers has been helping companies to achieve the “quick wins” and to adopt an integrated cost management approach to create a competitive advantage for the future.
As independent advisors we have the objectivity necessary to manage internal divisions within a company — inevitable when cost reduction is on the agenda — and the experience to know where its weak spots are. We have compiled a long-list of over 100 potential cost-saving options, all based on our experience in this area. Significantly, PricewaterhouseCoopers provides practical tax advice as part of the overall solution. Our cost management measures typically bring savings of between 10% and 30% of overhead costs.
If this is your situation
- You need to implement a cost reduction project on short notice
- You need a comprehensive analysis of your cost structure and cost drivers
- You need to develop a cost reduction strategy that will cover a transformation of business processes and organisational structure
- You need to prioritise opportunities for cost reduction
- You would like to plan and implement all of the necessary cost reduction measures
- You would like to set up effective cost management systems
- You plan on developing new cost monitoring systems that will help analyse the relative importance of operating costs
How we can help you
Our strategic cost management methodology uses a modular approach that can be tailored to each client's specific situation. What makes PricewaterhouseCoopers’ projects different:
- Quick wins
- Return on investment
- Advanced experience
For a typical project we:
- Determine the manageable cost base - we review of your cost structure and cost drivers, benchmarked to industry and functional levels
- Propose cost cutting and cost management opportunities - we work closely with management to identify specific cost cutting opportunities. These reflect both short- and long-term objectives of the company
- Design and implement strategies – we custom-design CM strategies and implement them using project and change management best practices. We measure the benefits from the project through our proprietary PITBM methodology. It envisages process and organizational changes, tax and legal structural changes, supply chain reorganization, outsourcing and shared services, costing and profitability models
- Make continuous improvements - we help set up systems that track cost and will constantly challenge operational costs
