Zero-Based Budgeting

Zero-based budgeting supports large-scale transformation by freeing up resources to drive growth and innovation. BCG’s zero-based budgeting consultants help clients anchor this approach in a culture of cost-consciousness, delivering clear benefits.

Zero-based budgeting is about more than deploying one-time cost-reduction strategies. It’s about using facts to decide how to liberate resources and make smart choices about where to allocate them. Zero-based operations deliver maximum value when they are tailored to an organization’s unique circumstances and embraced by people throughout the business.

Zero-Based Budgeting has Evolved to Enable Lasting Organizational Transformation

Our Approach to Zero-Based Budgeting

At BCG, we don’t take a cookie-cutter approach to the zero-based budgeting process. Instead, we tailor it to each client’s unique needs—including where they are in their business cycles and what they’ve defined as their strategic priorities and transformation agendas. As a result, we help companies avoid common pitfalls and capture the full potential of zero-based budgeting.

Notably, we enable companies to implement zero-based budgeting in ways that strike a balance between driving growth and managing costs, through these means:

Our Zero-Based Budgeting Client Success

A large oil and gas company wanted to instill cost discipline into its organizational culture as part of a broader transformation. By helping the client apply zero-based budgeting across multiple business lines, we enabled the company to identify up to $300 million in total value unlocked through new ways of working.

A multinational food company needed to execute a rapid cost-transformation program and extract new value from its marketing operations. By applying zero-based budgeting, we helped the client reduce SG&A costs by 25%. Nearly a third of these savings were delivered in the first year.

Our Insights on Zero-Based Budgeting

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Why Your Zero-Based Transformation Should Start Now

ZBT can do much more than inject cost discipline—it can help companies maintain their strategic momentum even amid difficult economic conditions.

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The CFO as the Architect of Zero-Based Transformation

The best approach to zero-based transformation comes from treating all spending as investment and making the CFO a key strategist for generating value.