Improve Your Ability to Manage Costs

PROBLEMS calling for better management of costs:

• Growth in overhead costs

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Overhead Costs

• Low Returns on Investment compared to industry competitors

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Low Returns

• Stagnant or falling margins despite growth in the business

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Stagnant Margins

• Lagging investment in new technologies

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Technology Investment

• Slow adoption of new approaches to managing functional costs

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and New Functional Cost Approaches

• Inability to keep pace with product improvements for customers

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Product Innovation

• Poor Economies of Scale

• Audio Tip: Cost Management and Economies of Scale

• Benchmark the cost structures of your
  best competitors
  

  • Financial gap: How much must you reduce cost to match them?

  • Rates and management approaches: Are they managing costs fundamentally differently?

  • Customer mix: Would a change in customers reduce your costs?

• Audio Tip: Benchmarking the Best Competitors

• Develop
  your own
  unique approaches to cost management

  • Typical costs: What costs does the typical business incur?

  • Cost Productivity: How do you measure cost productivity easily and practically?

  • Economies of Scale: Are unit costs declining over time?

  • Techniques: Can you use one or more of the four basic techniques to reduce costs?

• Audio Tip: Reducing the Unit Cost of a Product

<<Return to Manage the Cost Structure to Reduce Unit Costs