As business models are being challenged, organisations need to be more adaptable and resilient, naturally also by becoming more efficient and cutting inadequate costs. This change must happen from the bottom up, with the right leadership and sponsorship, to define the areas of improvement clearly and separate the good costs from the bad at both micro and macro levels. Innovation managers can, and should, lend a hand to address this shared challenge.
A well-structured innovation management programme for strategic cost-cutting and improvement is useful to get employees identifying ground-level enhancements, with several additional advantages:
BUILD A COST-CONSCIOUS CULTURE
Involving employees and challenging the organisation’s cost and waste culture will help you develop a cost-conscious culture for a more sustainable business approach. Keep cost optimisation as a strategic priority, even when there is no immediate pressure on costs;
AN ONGOING AND RESILIENT PROCESS
Having your cost-cutting and improvement strategy embedded in your innovation management programme will bring you continuous results, building a sustainable process and putting more robust and flexible foundations in place before introducing transformational initiatives.
EASILY UNCOVER BAD COSTS AND INEFFICIENCIES
Engaging and empowering everyone in the organisation, from shop floor to top management, will expose inefficiencies that would not usually be identified in a typical consulting diagnosis project. Your employees know more about your everyday business than anyone else, so tapping into their knowledge and efficiently getting everyone involved in signalling cost improvements will deliver interesting results for your strategy;
MORE DIALOGUE AND ENGAGEMENT
With effective and transparent communication regarding cost cuts and improvements, companies can face less resistance from employees and more easily ensure business management support. It can also bring higher employee engagement, as more frequent interactions are needed between finance and the operating managers and between managers and teams to keep costs aligned with business and to track results.
Strategic cost-cutting is, however, never blind cutting. It is in fact a method to accelerate the discovery of new and more effective ways of doing business, at a lower cost, which is even more relevant in difficult times. On the whole, it should be seen as a way of questioning how we do things – even why we do them – , exploring new innovative routes and building the foundations of tomorrow’s growth.
Andreia Agostinho Dias, Sales Executive
Diana Neves de Carvalho, Exago’s CEO