Who will benefit
All board members, finance directors, financial managers, senior accountants and financial controllers who are faced with the need to improve the cost effectiveness of their organisations dramatically and quickly and wish to review the options available to them.
Comments
Highlighted areas I had not considered. Will help in passing the message down the chain.
David Booth, Finance Director, Mowlem Railways
Very applicable to our current business strategy. Helps to pinpoint key aspects within the business for future consideration.
Richard Cashmore, Finance Manager, Vodafone Holding GmbH
What you can gain
- A rapid introduction to the wide range of options available to you in the search for reduced operating costs.
- An understanding of the methodologies that each approach to cost reduction involves and the related risks.
- An evaluation of the effort required in implementing each approach, the success that one should anticipate, and the timescales that are realistic before results begin to show.
- An appreciation of which approach will best meet the needs of your organisation and the circumstances that it faces.
Speaker
Robin Bellis-Jones, BSc, BComm, MBA, FCMA, FIMC, has over 25 years' consulting experience at director and senior management level in a broad spectrum of organisations, with particular emphasis on management reporting, planning and control. He is Managing Director of the BJH Group, whose clients include Reuters, British Library, Environment Agency, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Skandia Life, the Ministry of Defence, BUPA and Barclays Bank. Robin has also been a Member of CIMA Council for fifteen years and currently chairs the Research & Development Group within CIMA.
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to benefit your organisation
Programme outline
9.00 Registration and coffee
9.30 Start of seminar
This seminar will review the problems associated with cost reduction and examine the following range of cost reduction options, making extensive use of case study examples to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
- The simple approach to cost reduction
- The bureaucratic approach
- The equitable approach
- The 'sweat the assets' approach
- The strategic solution
- The core competencies approach
- Changing how we do things
- reviewing the effectiveness of key business processes
- reviewing the way we service customers
- reviewing the design of products/services/outputs
- reviewing overhead effectiveness
- rebalancing the business
- Changing the mix of what we do
- trimming bad products
- trimming bad customers
- trimming bad "channels to market"/distributors
- seeking synergies
- Reducing unit costs
- Increasing volumes and engineering costs out
- Using stretch targets
- Changing the "rules of engagement" and thinking "beyond the box"
- Embedding a culture of continuous improvement and lean thinking
- making cost reduction an integral part of the culture of the business
- Breaking the link with volume
- dealing with the adverse cost implications of a volatile and unpredictable trading environment
- Reviewing the performance and cost effectiveness of the IT function
- Restructuring the business
- Reviewing the management organisation structure and its effectiveness
- taking an intelligent approach to examining the organisation structure (and keeping the more talented people)
- Planning for success and securing commitment to change
- counting the cost of change and banking the benefits
5.00 Close of seminar
8 CPD hours (for non-CIMA members)