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Cost Management

BCG’s integrated approach to effective cost management rapidly identifies the deep-rooted issues affecting an organization’s cost structure and implements customized, industry-specific initiatives to revitalize performance and enhance value.

Companies have more than one option to address cost pressures. With end-to-end budget or headcount reduction, the impact is immediate—but the benefits don’t last. Quick cuts simply do not address underlying problems, nor do they improve the longer-term health of the company.

BCG’s holistic cost management process efficiently and effectively transforms an organization’s business, taking into consideration direct costs such as labor and materials as well as overhead costs—which in turn allows for reinvestment in future growth, stability, and strategy. The result is effective cost optimization that boosts performance and margins while simultaneously unlocking total shareholder value.

Why Is Cost Management Important Now?

Inflation, market uncertainty, and rising interest rates are all putting pressure on organizations. At the same time, organizations need to be investing in talent, sustainability, and digital to remain competitive. Higher operating expenses are squeezing margins, prompting companies to look at their cost structure for answers—while continuing to fund innovation and growth.

What’s Different About BCG’s Approach to Cost Management?

Unlike one-dimensional cost reduction or restructuring plans, BCG’s accelerated cost advantage approach resets costs within a strategic framework that is customized, precise, and thorough. Our total cost management process involves quickly diagnosing underlying operating issues, benchmarking performance, and then implementing short-, medium-, and long-term cost optimization initiatives and industry-specific measures to right-size expenses.

In parallel to optimizing costs, BCG experts help clients build a foundation for future competitive differentiation and growth by:

  • Considering end-to-end processes and focusing on outcomes
  • Embedding digital in everything we do
  • Working shoulder to shoulder with company leaders
  • Providing margin and cost transparency to enable more informed decisions
  • Ensuring executional certainty while driving communication
  • Helping cultivate a culture of continuous improvement that leads to sustainable change

Our Client Success in Cost Management


What Are BCG’s Cost Management Tools and Resources?

BCG has a vast array of proprietary tools and resources to guide clients’ cost transformation efforts. Our seamless, accelerated cost advantage approach starts with a rapid assessment phase to identify and prioritize areas of cost inefficiency where swift interventions are warranted—using benchmarks to compare a company’s performance to its peers. From there, our cost management experts leverage their experience and deep industry knowledge to deploy resources tailored to a client’s specific needs.

The approach incorporates the KEY by BCG portfolio and program management software, which has backed hundreds of successful cost optimization programs, accelerating value creation and managing complexity through every phase of the journey.

Meet Our Cost Management Experts

Our team of experts has an established track record across multiple industries, allowing them to guide and support an accelerated cost advantage approach for clients worldwide.

Our Latest Cost Management Insights

In the news

AI Can Help Retailers Offset Rising Costs

In Forbes, BCG’s Tiffany Yeh explains how large retailers use AI algorithms to help forecast demand, anticipate inventory flow, capture customer data, and ultimately offset costs.

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Cost Management

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