Cost Reduction for Managers & Management Consultants
- 7.5 hours on-demand video
- 2 articles
- 49 downloadable resources
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of Completion
Get your team access to 4,000+ top Udemy courses anytime, anywhere.
Try Udemy for Business- How to conduct a Cost Reduction Projects
- Identify quick wins when it comes to savings, cost cutting
- Apply the right frameworks and techniques from your management consulting toolbox
- Analyze investments in Excel
- Conduct make-or-buy analysis in practice
- Analyze in Excel potential improvements in Retail, FMCG on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain
- Find ways to cut cost of the business you manage
- Basic or intermediate Excel
- Basic knowledge of economics or finance
What is the aim of this course?
Every company has to control costs in order to survive and prosper. Therefore, many firms on regular basis perform cost reduction projects. Cost reduction project may be part of a wider Performance Improvement Project or be a standalone project carried out only in one of the business units. Those projects are extremely interesting because you will be able to make a real change, create a new reality and improve part of the business or even the whole business. There are also very difficult as you have to not only analyze areas but also find ways to cut costs, improve the current situation as well as, on some occasions, implement the change. The skills that you will learn during this sort of projects will be also very useful once you move to work for regular businesses or set-up your own firm. In this course I will show you how to deliver such projects fast and efficiently. In the course you will learn the following things:
How to identify potential savings especially quick wins
How to optimize processes
How to analyze investments
How to carry out make-or-buy analysis
How to spend less
This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement and turn-arounds in biggest firms from Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated in total 2 billion of additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts and managers who now are Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors, COO, CRO, CEO, Directors in Consulting Companies, Board Members etc. On top of that my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 60 000 students including people working in EY, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange and many others
I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses, tools that we use. To every lecture you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excels as well as additional presentations, materials shown in the lectures so as a part of this course you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modification, be applied by you or your team in your work.
Why I decided to create this course?
As a manager quite often you will have to find ways to spend less, reduce costs. This is not an easy task as you will have to increase efficiency and quality at the same time. Luckily, there are a lot of techniques that will help you in a structured way look for savings that will help you improve the profits of your business. In this course I will teach you how to find potential savings, estimate them in Excel and how to make sure that they don’t impact quality or efficiency. We will use for that management consulting tools, techniques and frameworks from top management consulting firms.
This course will help you become an expert in the field cost cutting, cost reduction which will be extremely useful not only in consulting but also later on when you become director or you move on to build your own business. By giving you exposure to real life cases and analyses I want to improve your skills in analyzing the right things fast and implementing the improvements that you have identified. Thanks to this course, you will know what and how to do during a cost cutting projects to deliver ahead of deadlines high quality products.
To sum it up, the course will help you become an expert in cost reduction, cost-cutting on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain, PwC, Deloitte, EY and other top consulting firms. That is why, I highly recommend this course to Managers, Management Consultants as well as Investment Directors working for PE, Directors, owners / founders of businesses that need better to improve their profitability and prepare for scaling.
In what way will you benefit from this course?
The course is a practical, step by step guide loaded with tones of analyses, tricks, hints that will significantly improve the speed with which you understand, analyze the business considered for acquisition. There is little theory – mainly examples, a lot of tips from my own experience as well as other notable examples worth mentioning. Our intention is that thanks to the course you will learn:
How to identify potential savings especially quick wins
How to optimize processes
How to analyze investments
How to carry out make-or-buy analysis
How to spend less
You can also ask me any question either through the discussion field or by messaging me directly.
How the course is organized?
The course is divided currently in 8 sections. Currently you will find the following sections:
Introduction. We begin with little intro into the course as well as some general info how the course is organized
Cost reduction frameworks. In the second section I will show you the main frameworks that will help you with cost reduction. We will have a look at the general framework. I will also show you the adjustments for FMCG and retail. Frameworks are great because they help you see the big picture. They also provide you with guidance what to do to achieve your goals
Quick wins. In this section I will show you how to identify the so called quick wins – in other words big savings that you can easily achieve, implement. We will start with 2 general frameworks (80/20 and low hanging fruits) and I will show you how we can apply it to finding the projects that will generate big savings.
Process optimization in practice – Retail chain example. In the 4th section I show you how to reduce cost of process in practice. For that I will use an example of processes in a store. You will see how you should calculate the cost of the processes and what techniques you should apply to optimize processes and achieve cost reduction, savings.
Make-or-buy analysis. In the 5th section we will discuss Make-or-buy analysis. You will be carrying them out after you have implemented the quick wins. They will help you find ways to further reduce costs. Make-or-buy analysis is extremely important tool that will help you decide in a rational way what you should do in-house and what to buy
Investment analyses. A lot of money can be saved by proper investment policy. In this section I will show you how to analyze in practice investments aiming at reducing costs
Reduce usage. In this section I will show you how you can cut costs by reducing the usage of certain things that you firm is using
Spend less. In the last section I will show you how to reduce your own private spending, expenditures. These examples will help you understand and implement the general approach to cost cutting. It will also help you reduce your own personal wealth
You will be able also to download many additional resources
Useful frameworks and techniques
List of resources useful during a performance improvement projects
Selected analyses shown in the course
Links to additional presentations, articles and movies
Links to books worth reading
At the end of my course, students will be able to…
How to conduct a Cost Reduction Projects
Apply the right frameworks and techniques from your management consulting toolbox
Identify quick wins when it comes to savings
Analyze investments in Excel
Conduct make-or-buy analysis in practice
Analyze in Excel potential improvements in Retail, FMCG on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain
Manage efficiently a consulting project devoted to performance improvement
Find ways to cut cost of the business you manage
Who should take this course? Who should not?
Managers who want to increase the profitability of their business
Manager you want to reduce costs
Owners of small and mid-sized businesses
Management Consultants and Business Analysts
Investment Directors
Financial Controllers
What will students need to know or do before starting this course?
Basic or intermediate Excel
Basic knowledge of economics or finance
- Managers who want to increase the profitability of their business
- Manager you want to reduce costs, cut costs
- Owners of small and mid-sized businesses
- Management Consultants and Business Analysts
- Investment Directors
- Financial Controllers
We begin with little intro into the course as well as some general info how the course is organized
A few words about your humble teacher
Here I will show you what to do if a blurry image appears
Here I will show you how to find additional resources attached to the coruse like Excel files, presentations, links etc.
In the second section I will show you the main frameworks that will help you with cost reduction. We will have a look at the general framework. I will also show you the adjustments for FMCG and retail. Frameworks are great because they help you see the big picture. They also provide you with guidance what to do to achieve your goals
Here I will show you the general framework for decreasing the costs in retail
Imagine that you are working for a cosmetics producers. And you have to increase his profitability
In this lecture we will solve the previously introduced case study
In this section I will show you how to identify the so called quick wins – in other words big savings that you can easily achieve, implement. We will start with 2 general frameworks (80/20 and low hanging fruits) and I will show you how we can apply it to finding the projects that will generate big savings
In this lecture I will show you how to use in practice 80/20 rule also known as Pareto principal
In this lecture we will talk briefly about applying the low hanging fruits in practice. I will show you the principles of using it as well as a practical example
Let’s look how the quick win framework looks for savings. We will look at 2 dimensions:
What is the potential savings we can achieve
How easy it is to implement it?
We will have thanks to 4 categories of projects that we can consider:
Cow savings – easy to kill and big
Elephant – difficult to catch yet big
Chicken savings – easy to kill yet you need to kill a lot of them not to be hungry
Bat savings – small and difficult to catch
Remember that the potential reduction in costs depends on 2 elements: potential percentage cost reduction and the cost starting point:
Potential % cost reduction
Cost starting point
We will discuss this in this lecture
Imagine that you have to identify quick wins in cost reduction for an international chain of drugstores. We know their cost structure
A few information about the firm that we will be analyzing
They have 4 000 stores
We have their cost structure
They have send us a list of projects that will help them reduce costs
Estimate the potential and group them using the quick wins framework
In this lecture we will solve the previously introduced case
In this lecture we will solve the previously introduced case
In this lecture we will solve the previously introduced case
There are some ways to estimate the potential reduction in costs
Get benchmarks
Carry out 1-day audit
Measure a sample
Ask experts
Ask suppliers of tools / IT solution / machines
Organize auction / tender
Do a consulting project with a consulting firm
In the 4th section I show you how to reduce cost of process in practice. For that I will use an example of processes in a store. You will see how you should calculate the cost of the processes and what techniques you should apply to optimize processes and achieve cost reduction, savings.
I show you how to optimize processes in the store. I will use here real case of a company from home improvement / DIY sector. You will get also the model we used to calculate costs
Here I will show you how we optimized the process of shelf replenishment in the store and what savings we managed to generate
Here I will show you how we optimized the process of shelf replenishment in the store and what savings we managed to generate
In the 5th section we will discuss Make-or-buy analysis. You will be carrying them out after you have implemented the quick wins. They will help you find ways to further reduce costs. Make-or-buy analysis is extremely important tool that will help you decide in a rational way what you should do in-house and what to buy
Here we will discuss a very useful concept that is used in business and should be also used when making serious long-term decisions the so called the total cost of ownership
Let’s imagine that you were to decided whether it makes more sense to buy a car or to use Uber
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
A lot of money can be saved by proper investment policy. In this section I will show you how to analyze in practice investments aiming at reducing costs
Let’s imagine that you have to decide which method to support sales reps that work for retailers will be the best one. Help you customer analyze which method is better. We will discuss what other methods are used by your competitors and what you should pay attention to in order to decide which methods is better
In this section I will show you how you can cut costs by reducing the usage of certain things that you firm is using
Imagine that you are analyzing a newly bought company that is providing Data Science services. Your boss wants you to look at usage and decide what to reduce
A few information about the firm that we will be analyzing
The company has 500 Data Scientists
You got data on what Software and tools they use
Eliminate things they don’t use
In this lecture I will show you teh available for the case study data
In this lecture we will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
Now we will have a look at a cosmetics producer and we will try to measure how much they can save by using less. We will look at 3 areas of their activities
Below some information about the firm we will be analyzing
They want to minimize number of bottles they use
The are considering visiting less frequently customers
They want to move 2 offices into 1 bigger office
Check how much they can save
You were asked to help the drugstore chain find potential savings by introducing cheaper substitutes. You have picked 4 potential topics
A few information about the firm that we will be analyzing
They have 4 000 stores
They want you to analyze Head Office costs
In Head Office you have picked 3 topics: water, tea & coffee, paper
You have also decide to have a look at boxes they use for the e-commerce
We are done with the main methods in which you can lower the costs. I hope you have enjoyed our framework as well as the case studies. We will be adding case studies to this course, but if you want us to cover specific problem you are currently facing, please let me know.
To make certain things more understandable when it comes to Cost Reduction we have decided to add to this course also a part of our course on Personal Finance. In this section I will show you how to cut costs, spend less in private life. This last section is not compulsory but I believe will help you understand certain things that may have seemed a bit abstract. The additional benefit is that you may be able to save some money. We have applied here similar framework that we have used for the firms, so most of the things we show here can be used also in firms as well.
Before you move to explore this section if you have any questions, request regarding Cost Reduction projects please let me know. I am always happy to help with whatever I can. We have done numerous project around that in the last 14 years so I believe we will be able to answer most of your questions.
So, enjoy the rest of the course devoted to Spending Less!
In the last section I will show you how to reduce your own private spending, expenditures. These examples will help you understand and implement the general approach to cost cutting. It will also help you reduce your own personal wealth
Here I will show you the general framework for building wealth that we will use in the whole course. In this lecture we wil go in detail when it comes to ways in which you can spend less and save more
Just as reminder reducing usage is one of the ways in which we can spend less. Now we will talk about this in details
We are back to Giuseppe. Since we know that he is spending too much let’s try to see how much he can save by reducing frequency of certain activities
In this lecture we will solve previously introduced cases study.
In this lecture we will solve previously introduced cases study.
Let’s imagine that you were to help Maria reduce her one-offs expenses by reducing the frequency of purchase. There are a few things that we know about Maria. Use them to decide how often she should replace: domestic aplliances, clothes, smarthpones, laptos and others
We will start by discussing how to identify which expenses are worth eliminating. Later on as always we will move on to case studies. There are 3 main reasons why you should eliminate certain expenses
Eliminate things you don’t use
Eliminate things you don’t enjoy
Eliminate things that are harmful
We will discuss it in this lecture
Whether you clean, cook, wait in the line you are effectively using your precious resource that is also limited – the time. Time like money is limited and you can exchange between each other. Calculating the value of your time is a next step that will help you save money. We will dsicuss it in this lecture
Another step you can take is to repurpose assets that don’t generate income. We will discuss it in detail in this lecture
In this lecture we will have a look at an approach we propose to handling the assets
Tomasz & Monika married 5 years ago and they have decided with his wife to go through their assets and put them to use. Help them with this task
Just as a reminder you were supposed to help Tomasz and his wife to go through their assets and put them to use. First you had to divide into 4 groups
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study
In this lecture I will show you the solution to previously introduced case study