Creating a Culture of Cost Optimization
Incorporating cost optimization into your business strategy on an organization wide-scale
Finding ways to capitalize on industry transformations and the opportunities they represent should be incorporated into your organization’s strategic planning efforts. Not only does a strategic planning process help your organization to define bigger-picture initiatives, it can also help answer the question of, “How do we plan to fund our larger goals?”
It’s not unusual for organizations to prioritize finding savings from within daily cost expenditures, yet this method often only focuses on short term results. For example, reducing overall costs by a certain percentage compared to the previous year or “freezing” purchases in certain expense areas could do more harm than good. The potential savings gathered by this approach might be unsustainable and also could generate resistance from affected departments and staff.
A more sustainable, long-term approach to fund initiatives can be achieved by actively seeking additional cash flow through strategic cost optimization efforts, driven by a cost-management philosophy embedded in an organization’s culture. A key to uncovering sustainable cost-savings opportunities from within your supplier base is two-fold. Not only should your organization create a culture of cost reduction by championing expense management efforts across all departments, but also encourage greater familiarization with incumbent and potentially new suppliers and their industries to find opportunities to obtain greater value for the products and services they provide.
