| 1 |
Maintain cost management as a strategic priority |
| |
Do not allow cost efficiency to drop down the priority list and align cost management with your other strategic priorities |
| 2 |
Adopt an external investor mindset |
| |
Challenge your own organisation in the same way a potential investor would, unconstrained by current organisational boundaries and perceptions |
| 3 |
Create profit and cost transparency |
| |
Continually seek to improve your organisation’s understanding of where profit is generated and cost is consumed |
| 4 |
Engage front line workers |
| |
Seek to instil a greater sense of ownership within your front-line staff and line managers |
| 5 |
Equip staff to ‘walk the walk’ |
| |
Invest in the tools and training to enable your employees to fully participate in creating cost efficiencies |
|
Tools |
| 1. |
Is your business able to obtain relevant and accurate cost management information regularly and automatically? |
| 2. |
Does your business’s financial reporting accurately reflect your business performance in a consistent way? |
| 3. |
Do you use appropriate tools to challenge the costs of your business on a regular basis? (E.g. Cost to serve analysis; internal / sector / out of sector benchmarks and comparators) |
| 4. |
Do you regularly challenge your operating model to seek cross business boundary efficiencies? |
| People and culture |
| 5. |
Are cost performance commitments linked to results with both rewards and consequences? |
| 6. |
Does everyone in the organisation have consistent cost objectives as part of the performance management process? |
| 7. |
Do you have the right skills in place to continuously improve cost management? |
| Process & Controls |
| 8. |
Are people accountable for managing and monitoring costs in the different areas of your business? |
| 9. |
Are spend and cost containment policies and processes in place and enforced? |
| 10. |
Does your business stop projects or spend that is not consistent with the agreed strategy? |
PandTMarketing@kpmg.co.uk
