What you'll learn:
- How to conduct Cost Reduction Projects
- Identify quick wins when it comes to savings, cost cutting
- Apply the right frameworks and techniques from your management consulting toolbox
- Analyze investments in Excel
- Conduct make-or-buy analysis in practice
- Analyze in Excel potential improvements in Retail, FMCG on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain
- Find ways to cut cost of the business you manage
What is the aim of this course?
Every company has to control costs in order to survive and prosper. Therefore, many firms on a regular basis perform cost reduction projects. Cost reduction projects may be part of a wider Performance Improvement Project or be a standalone project carried out only in one of the business units. Those projects are extremely interesting because you will be able to make a real change, create a new reality, and improve part of the business or even the whole business. They are also very difficult as you have to not only analyze areas but also find ways to cut costs, improve the current situation, as well as, on some occasions, implement the change. The skills that you will learn during this sort of project will also be very useful once you move to work for regular businesses or set up your own firm. In this course, I will show you how to deliver such projects fast and efficiently. In the course, you will learn the following things:
How to identify potential savings, especially quick wins
How to optimize processes
How to analyze investments
How to carry out a make-or-buy analysis
How to spend less
This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement, and turn-arounds in the biggest firms from the Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B, and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried out or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated a total of 2 billion in additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course, I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts, and managers who are now Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors, COO, CRO, CEO, Directors in Consulting Companies, Board Members, etc. On top of that, my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 315 000 students, including people working in EY, McKinsey, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Adidas, Naspers, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange, and many others.
I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses and tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excel files, as well as additional presentations, and materials shown in the lectures, so as a part of this course, you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modifications, be applied by you or your team in your work.
Why have I decided to create this course?
As a manager, quite often you will have to find ways to spend less and reduce costs. This is not an easy task, as you will have to increase efficiency and quality at the same time. Luckily, there are a lot of techniques that will help you, in a structured way, look for savings that will help you improve the profits of your business. In this course, I will teach you how to find potential savings, estimate them in Excel, and make sure that they don’t impact quality or efficiency. We will use the management consulting tools, techniques, and frameworks from top management consulting firms.
This course will help you become an expert in the field of cost-cutting and cost reduction, which will be extremely useful not only in consulting but also later on when you become a director or you move on to build your own business. By giving you exposure to real-life cases and analyses, I want to improve your skills in analyzing the right things fast and implementing the improvements that you have identified. Thanks to this course, you will know what and how to do during cost-cutting projects to deliver high-quality products ahead of deadlines.
To sum it up, the course will help you become an expert in cost reduction and cost-cutting at the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain, PwC, Deloitte, EY, and other top consulting firms. That is why I highly recommend this course to Managers, Management Consultants, as well as Investment Directors working for PE, Directors, and owners/founders of businesses that need to improve their profitability and prepare for scaling.
In what way will you benefit from this course?
The course is a practical, step-by-step guide loaded with tons of analyses, tricks, and hints that will significantly improve the speed with which you understand and analyze the business being considered for acquisition. There is little theory – mainly examples, a lot of tips from my own experience, as well as other notable examples worth mentioning. Our intention is that, thanks to the course, you will learn:
How to identify potential savings, especially quick wins
How to optimize processes
How to analyze investments
How to carry outa make-or-buy analysis
How to spend less
You can also ask me any questions either through the discussion field or by messaging me directly.
How is the course organized?
The course is divided into the following sections:
Introduction. We begin with a little intro to the course, as well as some general info on how the course is organized
Cost reduction frameworks. In the second section, I will show you the main frameworks that will help you with cost reduction. We will have a look at the general framework. I will also show you the adjustments for FMCG and retail. Frameworks are great because they help you see the big picture. They also provide you with guidance on what to do to achieve your goals
Quick wins. In this section, I will show you how to identify the so-called quick wins – in other words, big savings that you can easily achieve and implement. We will start with 2 general frameworks (80/20 and low-hanging fruits), and I will show you how we can apply them to find the projects that will generate big savings.
Process optimization in practice – Retail chain example. In the 4th section, I show you how to reduce the cost of the process in practice. For that, I will use an example of processes in a store. You will see how you should calculate the cost of the processes and what techniques you should apply to optimize processes and achieve cost reduction and savings.
Make-or-buy analysis. In the 5th section, we will discuss the Make-or-buy analysis. You will be carrying them out after you have implemented the quick wins. They will help you find ways to further reduce costs. Make-or-buy analysis is an extremely important tool that will help you decide in a rational way what you should do in-house and what to buy
Investment analyses. A lot of money can be saved by a proper investment policy. In this section, I will show you how to analyze in practice investments aiming at reducing costs
Reduce usage. In this section, I will show you how you can cut costs by reducing the usage of certain things that your firm is using
Spend less. In the last section, I will show you how to reduce your own private spending and expenditures. These examples will help you understand and implement the general approach to cost-cutting. It will also help you reduce your own personal wealth
You will also be able to download many additional resources
Useful frameworks and techniques
List of resources useful during performance improvement projects
Selected analyses shown in the course
Links to additional presentations, articles, and movies
Links to books worth reading
At the end of my course, students will be able to…
How to Conduct Cost Reduction Projects
Apply the right frameworks and techniques from your management consulting toolbox
Identify quick wins when it comes to savings
Analyze investments in Excel
Conduct a make-or-buy analysis in practice
Analyze in Excel potential improvements in Retail, and FMCG on the level of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain
Manage efficiently a consulting project devoted to performance improvement
Find ways to cut the cost of the business you manage
Who should take this course? Who should not?
Managers who want to increase the profitability of their business
Managers who want to reduce costs
Owners of small and mid-sized businesses
Management Consultants and Business Analysts
Investment Directors
Financial Controllers
What will students need to know or do before starting this course?
Basic or intermediate Excel
Basic knowledge of economics or finance
