How can you reduce expenses without negatively impacting business operations in Corporate FP&A?

I would add on top of this, take a look in the area where more cost is wasted do you to technical errors, need to upgrade skills and knowledges to use updated skills and technologies, this way you can avoid a long run cost and be more productive.

Zero based budgeting is a powerful tool which can be used to achieve this objective. Typically in a FP&A process, one would take previous years expenses and then assess if that expenses needs to increase or not, while using zero based budget, you start from a scratch & in most cases end up in savings!

I believe be a company driven by data can support and improve the budget and forecast, what automatically allows leaders to understand what's going on. With that on table leaders can cut the unnecessary cost, but it keeps them on track.

In my experience, reducing expenses in Corporate FP&A without “hampering” business operations requires a balanced approach. Strategies include process streamlining, expense analysis, staff training, outsourcing, budget control, strategic cost prioritization, vendor negotiations, energy efficiency, remote work policies, and continuous review. This multifaceted approach aims to identify inefficiencies, renegotiate contracts, and optimize spending while preserving essential functions and strategic investments. It's an ongoing effort to maintain financial health and support business growth effectively.

Based on my experience, many of company expense was passed from generations, and no one challenge the necessity of the expenditure and everybody always say this mantra "it's been that way ever since". So identifying our expense help us to understand the nature and necessity of the expense, and by that we can then decide based on our priority do we need to keep, hold, or replace the expenditure with the other alternatives.

Yes, becoming more efficient has been a mantra for the past 20 years. Now with AI we can take the next steps on this journey. It’s important to note though that we shouldn’t just be cheap but also be good.

In the B2B SaaS field, adopting a modular software design can yield substantial cost benefits. By ensuring components can be added or removed based on demand, you can avoid unnecessary expenses on unused features. Another approach is to renegotiate contracts or leverage bulk purchasing with vendors to get better deals. Regularly revisiting vendor relationships can lead to discovering newer, cost-effective alternatives in the market. Implementing rigorous Quality Assurance (QA) processes can reduce costs related to software bugs and customer churn. Furthermore, investing in staff training and upskilling can help your team manage multiple roles, reducing the need for external hires.

Indeed! After performing a comprehensive costing analysis of all activities at one bank, we used the data to inform us about possible opportunities to reduce costs. We identified opportunities for every operations department and prioritized them based on effort level, external resources required, and the financial benefit. Then we developed specific action plans to address them with the manager. We bragged about each department's successes. We created KPI's to monitor and analyze progress. Over time, many improvements were fully implemented resulting in significant reductions in operating expenses.

Yes, this is another simple tactic that likely won’t hurt anyone inside the company. Just remember that we shouldn’t cut too deep on our vendors as we want to have a good relationship with them and continually strive for win-win situations.

Furthermore, in the B2B SaaS industry, consider transitioning from perpetual licenses to subscription-based models. This can yield predictable revenue streams and potentially reduce customer acquisition costs. Optimizing cloud infrastructure is also key; by evaluating usage patterns, you can right-size server and storage capacities, ensuring efficiency. Embrace open-source tools where possible, as they often provide comparable functionalities to expensive licensed software. Additionally, periodic audits of software subscriptions can uncover unused or overlapping tools, allowing for cost savings. Collaboration across departments is essential; sharing resources and tools can eliminate redundancies.

Raising employee awareness of cost-saving measures involves more than simply reducing expenses; it's also about cultivating a culture of accountability and effectiveness. When employees are actively engaged and empowered to participate in cost reduction initiatives, it can yield enduring and favorable results for an organization's financial well-being. While many companies opt to reward and acknowledge cost-saving efforts, this alone is not sufficient. There are several key actions that companies can take in order to nurture this culture: - Provide financial education and training. - Foster transparency in financial reporting. - Enable feedback mechanisms and establish effective communication channels.

In my experience,an employee should have transparency on the career progression and growth from time to time. Empowering employees at all levels is necessary,so that the value chain be created.

YES! At a bank, our loan operations team had a point system. Every task had a different point value depending on the benchmark time to perform it. Each individual had a target amount of points for the day. Higher point achievement meant greater eligibility for promotions, raises, and bonuses. Overall, the team saw large gains in productivity.

Sometimes you have to go out of the box and re-engineer the native/traditional procurement style to bring in the savings. For e.g. many organisations pay hefty amount towards monthly electricity bills, and very few organisations know that electricity can also be procured in open market at much lesser cost (frequently referred to as Open Access).

Would agree with all that is said here. In addition to out-of-box solutions and getting creative in terms of increasing employee productivity, tightening T&E budget, one more avenue to reduce cost, which I have done in the past, would be to either reduce or completely eliminate contractors work force. This would definitely strain the FTE's, in the short-term, but is a better option than laying off FTE and achieve cost savings.