BINLEY DRAKE SERVICES: Cost Reduction

Reducing costs not only increases profits; it generates funds for re-investment and reduces the risk of a takeover. But cutting costs in the wrong places can lead to loss of quality, reputation and customers. Our approach is to combine cost workshops with benchmarking to identify the biggest opportunities, typically in procurement, supply chain, operations and support teams. We then focus our efforts on helping you to realise the savings whilst improving your customer proposition.

PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN:

Procurement reviews encompass sourcing, category and supplier strategies. We identify opportunities for consolidation, collaboration and the introduction of technology, including online tenders, auctions and e-procurement. For own label product we work with buyers, designers and researchers to ensure production costs are minimised, and are directly aligned to the customer value proposition. Once savings are identified, we work with the existing teams to manage the delivery programme providing tools, support and project management capability to ensure the potential benefits are realised.

Our supply chain reviews begin with an analysis of stock-turn, availability and rates of sale, and then home in on the key problem areas to identify root-cause. The objective advice that we offer will depend on the scale of the opportunities we find, and your ambitions in this area.

OPERATIONS AND SUPPORT COSTS:

We benchmark performance across operations to identify patterns within groups, highlighting any structural drivers of inefficiency, and to identify best practice in top-performing outlets. This helps us evaluate the quick-win opportunities that can be realised through targeting, training and labour scheduling – this often provides savings of between 2% and 5%.

We use customer research to identify industry exemplars and customer expectations, the current customer journey and potential opportunities. We combine that with analysis of key internal processes to identify the most efficient ways of working, and the optimum levels of staffing and service – this provides a longer-term route to sustained competitive advantage.

We benchmark each support area and compare best practice externally to identify target areas and potential savings. We validate the opportunities by detailed review, identifying duplication and low value activities that can be removed, processes that can be improved, and the potential for consolidation, partnering and outsourcing.

In both areas we use interviews and workshops to identify underlying causes of inefficiency and to develop and engage practical alternatives. Once agreed, we help you structure plans, communications and tracking to ensure changes are supported, delivered and retained.