Descobrindo os drivers de custo para obter melhorias sustentadas

Pressões intensas de uma ampla gama de fontes, incluindo a concorrência de jogadores de baixo custo e os preços crescentes de matérias-primas forçadas, com líderes corporativos forçados em muitas indústrias para dar uma disputa de baixo custo e os preços mais altos dos líderes, forçados, com líderes corporativos forçados em muitas indústrias para dar uma disputa de baixo custo para que os preços mais baixos e que tenham líderes brutos forçados. Os mercados de capitais e os acionistas exigiram que as empresas respondessem a essas pressões, gerenciando custos de maneira mais eficiente e eficaz. Isso inclui custos para instalações, sistemas de informação, trabalho terceirizado, transporte, viagens e serviços públicos, entre muitas outras áreas consideradas indiretas de rotina. Dependendo do setor e da extensão da terceirização da empresa, os custos não -venennel podem representar 40 a 50 % das despesas da SG&A. Como esses custos tradicionalmente recebem menos atenção do que os custos de pessoal, o potencial de economia geralmente é significativo. No entanto, reduzir os custos não -venos e fazer as alterações permanecem não são tarefas simples. Os executivos devem decidir onde direcionar seus esforços e determinar como reduzir custos, enquanto ainda atende às necessidades de partes interessadas internas e externas.

A critical but often undervalued area for cost improvement is nonpersonnel costs within selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses. These include costs for facilities, information systems, outsourced labor, transportation, travel, and utilities, among many other areas that are regarded as routine overhead. Depending on the industry and the extent of outsourcing by the company, nonpersonnel costs can account for 40 to 50 percent of SG&A expenses. Because these costs have traditionally received less attention than personnel costs, the savings potential is usually significant. However, reducing nonpersonnel costs and making the changes stick are not simple tasks. Executives must decide where to target their efforts and determine how to reduce costs, while still meeting the needs of internal and external stakeholders.

O BCG desenvolveu uma abordagem abrangente para ajudar as empresas a identificar e quantificar oportunidades para reduzir os custos que não foram de bastidores, selecionar metas e medidas de melhoria e sustentar melhorias. A abordagem se concentra nos "motoristas" - como contagem ou utilização da cabeça - que determinam os níveis de custos não -venenos. Essa abordagem ajuda a reduzir custos sem sacrificar a eficiência ou a eficácia, além de promover uma ampla aceitação das reduções em toda a organização. No entanto, geralmente vemos que esses esforços não são eficazes o suficiente, como evidenciado por uma incompatibilidade entre a qualidade dos produtos ou serviços e as necessidades dos clientes internos, bem como pelo gerenciamento inadequado da demanda. Vários desafios comuns ajudam a explicar por que as organizações lutam para gerenciar os custos não -venenais de maneira eficaz:

Nonpersonnel Costs Are Challenging to Manage

Most companies already put significant effort into keeping nonpersonnel costs low—for example, by managing tenders. However, we often see that these efforts are not effective enough, as evidenced by a mismatch between the quality of products or services and the needs of internal customers, as well as by inadequate demand management. Several common challenges help to explain why organizations struggle to manage nonpersonnel costs effectively:

• Os orçamentos para os custos não -venenais normalmente não são definidos no nível da empresa. Como cada unidade de negócios ou função define seu próprio orçamento, as empresas não têm uma perspectiva abrangente sobre os custos não -pessoal e, portanto, podem subestimar seu significado. Além disso, a ausência de um único "proprietário" desses custos dificulta identificá-los e controlá-los. Consequentemente, os custos totais em categorias como viagens aéreas ou serviços de TI podem ser altas, mesmo que a empresa negocie os baixos preços unitários no nível da empresa. Como resultado, eles não percebem que as melhorias geralmente podem ser feitas de maneira rápida e indolor. Durante os bons momentos, eles tendem a basear os orçamentos para os custos que não funcionam nos gastos do ano anterior ou a ajustá -los em resposta a como a contagem da cabeça mudou. Em tempos de austeridade, eles reduzem os custos indiscriminadamente em geral. O objetivo deve ser alcançar a excelência em custos, otimizando os custos não venenativos de uma maneira inteligente e sustentável. (Veja o Anexo 1.) A importância relativa dos grupos de custos varia de acordo com a indústria e a empresa. Os grupos responsáveis ​​pela maior participação nos custos são tipicamente edifícios e equipamentos, gerenciamento de instalações, gerenciamento de frotas e serviços de funcionários e recursos humanos. Não incluímos um grupo de custos, porque os custos de TI são determinados por fatores únicos e já estamos examinados de perto pela alta gerência devido ao seu tamanho. (Para uma discussão sobre como reduzir os custos de TI por meio da simplificação, consulte
• Companies don’t often apply stringent demand-management processes to centrally control the quantity of items procured in nonpersonnel-cost categories. Consequently, total costs in categories such as air travel or IT services may be high even if the company negotiates low unit prices at the enterprise level.
• Managers don’t know the right improvement measures to apply in order to reduce nonpersonnel costs or the appropriate cost levels to set as targets. As a result, they don’t realize that improvements can often be made quickly and painlessly.
• Discussions about cost-saving opportunities are often conducted on the basis of emotions, rather than facts about value delivered, because managers and employees may seek to maintain their access to products and services.

These challenges make it hard for companies to manage nonpersonnel costs with the same sophisticated approaches that they apply to determine budgets in other areas. During good times, they tend to base budgets for nonpersonnel costs on the previous year’s spending or to adjust them in response to how head count has changed. In times of austerity, they indiscriminately slash costs across the board.

Cost Excellence Is Worth the Effort

Rather than sidestepping the challenges to managing nonpersonnel costs, executives need to address the issues head on. The objective should be to achieve cost excellence by optimizing nonpersonnel costs in an intelligent and sustainable way.

Nonpersonnel costs can be clustered into ten groups. (See Exhibit 1.) The cost groups’ relative importance will vary by industry and company. The groups responsible for the largest share of costs are typically buildings and equipment, facility management, fleet management, and employee services and human resources. We don’t include a cost group for IT, because IT costs are determined by unique factors and are already closely scrutinized by top management owing to their size. (For a discussion of how to reduce IT costs through simplification, see Simplifique: seis maneiras de reduzir a complexidade , BCG Focus, março de 2013.)

A oportunidade geral de economia para uma empresa específica depende de seus níveis de custo atual e se já foi implementada medidas de redução de custo. A experiência do BCG sugere que as economias são potencialmente de 20 a 35 % no marketing; 15 a 25 % para gerenciamento de instalações; 10 a 20 % para gerenciamento de viagens; 5 a 20 %, tanto para edifícios quanto para equipamentos e para sistemas de informação; 5 a 15 % para gerenciamento de frotas, serviços comerciais e serviços públicos; e até 10 % para serviços de funcionários e RH. Essas estimativas de oportunidades de poupança incluem melhorias de custos resultantes de preços mais baixos e quantidades menores compradas. Consequentemente, as empresas podem ver o impacto final mais rápido do que ao reduzir os custos de pessoal. E, em contraste com o corte de custos em outras áreas, a maioria dos funcionários nem percebe reduções em alguns tipos de custos que não seno, como aluguéis de instalações ou taxas de utilidade.

In addition to their high savings potential, measures to control nonpersonnel costs can often be implemented quickly and with relatively low up-front investments (for example, by changing travel guidelines). Consequently, companies can see the bottom-line impact faster than when reducing personnel costs. And, in contrast to cost cutting in other areas, most employees will not even notice reductions in some types of nonpersonnel costs, such as facility rents or utility rates.

Os benefícios também se estendem além de aumentar a linha inferior. A redução dos custos não -venenais pode aumentar e apoiar as expectativas do mercado de capitais e acionistas, demonstrando que a empresa é ágil o suficiente para suportar o impacto de forças econômicas desfavoráveis. A análise da BCG em vários setores constatou consistentemente que empresas com baixas despesas com SG&A, como porcentagem de receitas, tendem a gerar níveis mais altos do retorno total dos acionistas. Além disso, as empresas com custos decrescentes tendem a gerar níveis mais altos de TSR do que as empresas com custos estáveis ​​ou crescentes. Como os custos não venenais representam uma alta participação nas despesas da SG&A, os analistas de mercado consideram seu desenvolvimento como uma métrica importante para avaliar a capacidade da alta gerência de otimizar a alocação de recursos internos. Eles geralmente consideram como uma empresa gerencia os custos não-venenais ao longo do tempo e compara seu desempenho com o de seus pares. A metodologia permite que as empresas avaliem seus custos atuais e motoristas subjacentes e comparem esses custos e motoristas com benchmarks externos. As empresas usam as idéias para determinar alvos e medidas de melhoria. Os objetivos finais são implementar as mudanças e sustentar as melhorias. (Para uma discussão sobre a abordagem geral do BCG para custar a excelência, veja

A Driver-Based Approach to Reducing Costs

BCG’s driver-based approach for achieving excellence in nonpersonnel costs entails four steps. The methodology allows companies to assess their current costs and underlying drivers, and to compare those costs and drivers with external benchmarks. Companies use the insights to determine targets and improvement measures. The ultimate goals are to implement the changes and sustain the improvements. (For a discussion of BCG’s general approach to cost excellence, see Seis etapas para alcançar a vantagem competitiva através da excelência em custo , BCG Focus, agosto de 2013.)

Assess Nonpersonnel Costs and Their Drivers

To obtain a standardized view of their nonpersonnel-cost base across all business units and cost categories, companies need to define cost groups and subgroups, determine the total costs generated by each one, and identify the primary cost drivers.

To facilitate this effort, BCG has developed a standardized list that sets out cost groups and subgroups, as well as their respective cost drivers. Exhibit 2 illustrates this breakdown for several cost groups. The standardized list can be applied to all business units and companies, and thereby provides the basis for internal and external benchmarking. A company can customize its terminology for each cost group and subgroup to reflect company-specific names and cost allocations; however, its categories must correspond in substance to those on the standardized list in order to permit a like-to-like benchmarking.

To ensure consistency and quality, the company’s central controlling function should be responsible for collecting data for the benchmarking. The company can obtain a dynamic perspective on how costs have changed over time by gathering historical data on cost drivers during the past three to four years.

After collecting and validating all the required data, the company can develop structured overviews of the total costs as well as in-depth breakdowns for each cost group. At this stage, the company should focus on the initial findings for key cost groups and understand how they compare with other companies’ costs and drivers.

Benchmark Costs and Drivers to Gain Valuable Insights

Traditional efforts to benchmark a company’s nonpersonnel costs often fail to yield insights that companies can act upon effectively, because these costs are hard to compare, whether internally (among different business units and over time) or externally. By drawing on BCG’s standardized list of cost groups and drivers, and its comprehensive database of nonpersonnel costs across industries, companies can perform an effective like-to-like comparison of cost groups and drivers.

For example, simply comparing a sales organization’s travel costs over several years would not yield useful insights. The high-level, absolute cost figures could vary for numerous reasons, such as head count and the frequency of travel by employees in a given region or role. In contrast, gathering data on the number of sales full-time equivalents, the number of trips per year, and the costs of each trip allows the company to determine the true drivers of variations among travel costs. It may find, for instance, that despite stable absolute travel costs over time, costs per sales FTE have actually increased. (See Exhibit 3.) Similarly, rather than comparing absolute figures for costs of company vehicles among business units, companies should consider the number of FTEs eligible to rent vehicles and the cost per rented vehicle per eligible FTE.

Determine Targets and Improvement Measures

Companies can apply the insights arising from the benchmarking to pinpoint the right targets for cost reduction and to select improvement measures for achieving the targets.

To determine specific top-down targets, companies should apply the results of the benchmarking, as well as insights on typical savings potential derived from BCG’s experience. They should also conduct qualitative interviews with managers to identify which cost groups and subgroups offer the most significant opportunities. To facilitate the selection of cost reduction measures and their implementation, it is essential to define the savings targets as specifically as possible for each cost group and organizational unit.

With this fact base in hand, companies can determine the improvement measures for each cost group and subgroup. BCG’s approach to determining appropriate measures entails reviewing both the effectiveness and efficiency of the related expense items. (See Exhibit 4.)

• The effectiveness review seeks to identify opportunities to substitute less expensive suppliers (such as lower-cost insurance providers, travel agencies, or airlines) or meet internal customers’ needs with lower-quality services (for example, by reducing the scope of management reports).
• The efficiency review considers opportunities to eliminate or reduce activities (for example, by applying more stringent demand management or innovative technologies to decrease the quantity of products purchased or leased) or to reduce the frequency and level of services (for example, by deploying videoconferencing technology to lower the number of business trips).

In applying this approach, BCG has developed more than 430 ideas and best practices for selecting improvement measures corresponding to specific cost groups and subgroups. Leading companies have used these insights to identify improvement measures that generate significant impact. (See the sidebar below.)

Companies can organize workshops in which service-providing units and their internal customers discuss the findings of the cost driver benchmarking and jointly develop ideas for improvement measures. To ensure the effectiveness of the measures and promote their acceptance by all organizational levels, companies should follow a bottom-up process in which units develop and document the measures they will implement. In addition, companies should designate managers who will be responsible for driving the process during the project and for providing continued oversight after its completion to ensure sustained improvements.

Sustain the Cost Reductions

Companies that succeed in reducing nonpersonnel costs using traditional approaches often struggle to stave off a rebound in cost levels after the initial improvements. They tend to pull back from or even cancel nonpersonnel-cost-reduction measures in their effort to grow revenues. In addition, rising costs in areas not covered by the cost reduction measures can offset their impact. The absence of adequate cost tracking and reporting can also promote a rebound in costs and amplify its magnitude. Moreover, companies often lack mechanisms to adjust budgets in response to declining growth targets or top-line results and neglect to establish forums for regularly discussing cost reduction issues.

To sustain reductions over the long term, top management should apply best-practice principles of cost management. In BCG’s experience, seven such principles are essential for addressing the “pain points” that allow nonpersonnel costs to rebound.

• Ensure full responsibility and control over costs at the source. A central controlling function should designate ownership of nonpersonnel budgets throughout the company. Each organizational unit should be responsible for the direct nonpersonnel costs arising from its activities, as well as for the secondary costs it incurs by requesting other units to provide services or products.
• Offer incentives for achieving budget and cost targets. Working with top management, the central controlling function should select KPIs for cost controls. These metrics should be used to continually manage and track cost development at the company and business-unit levels, as well as for nonpersonnel-cost groups aggregated across the company (for example, travel). The company should link the compensation of unit managers or other managers responsible for specific nonpersonnel-cost groups to their achievement of targets for cost KPIs.
• Create cost transparency through reporting. For each unit and cost type, the company should establish enterprise-level reports that document adherence to budgets and guidelines. The reports should be action oriented—for example, by flagging risks and suggesting potential mitigating actions.
• Establish top-down cost planning. Cost planning should be decoupled from the previous year’s budget in order to discourage unnecessary or excessive spending as the end of the year approaches (a practice called “saving next year’s budget”). The company should calculate the necessary base budget each year, considering the strategic plan and realistic revenue projections. Funds for a new project should be added on top of the regular budget so that they can be easily removed from the next year’s budget if the project is completed.
• Introduce cost dialogues. Managers responsible for costs should conduct annual “cost dialogues” with their internal customers. These discussions should clarify nonpersonnel costs for each cost group and the resources required for providing each product or service requested by the internal customer. Determining the service levels truly required by the customer allows the participants to quickly identify the best ways to reduce costs.
• Defina processos de orçamento claro. As empresas precisam de um processo claro para definir orçamentos anuais e ajustá -los durante o curso do ano. Isso inclui, por exemplo, identificar o gerente responsável por cada tipo de custo não-pessoal, nomear órgãos de tomada de decisão, estabelecer mecanismos de escalada e linhas de relatório e implementar o gerenciamento de desempenho. Diretrizes e políticas para os custos não -venonel devem ser revisadas regularmente para garantir que sejam apropriadas. Além disso, as empresas devem procurar oportunidades para aplicar inovações, como big data e digitalização, para melhorar sua posição de custo. Por exemplo, o banco estabeleceu um novo relatório de custo para ajudar os gerentes seniores a permanecer focados no programa e fornecer um canal para questões crescentes. A função de controle central usou o relatório para comunicar os resultados trimestrais ao Conselho de Administração e oferecer informações orientadas para a ação, destacando riscos e despesas de implementação que excederam os valores orçamentados. O novo relatório foi integrado ao conjunto existente de relatórios de negócios fornecidos à alta gerência. O banco também introduziu diálogos de custo entre as unidades de negócios para promover os esforços de redução de custos. Essas discussões foram uma oportunidade para as unidades de negócios concordarem com abordagens para otimizar os custos, como através de reduções direcionadas nos níveis de serviço. Para criar uma base de fatos para os diálogos de custo, cada unidade de negócios que prestava serviços a clientes internos foi obrigada a descrever os fatores de custo subjacentes a seus serviços. Ao utilizar um banco de dados abrangente de drivers de custo e referência, as empresas podem identificar os custos certos para melhorar, definir os objetivos certos e aplicar as medidas certas para alcançar e sustentar resultados. Tempo? Que processos usamos para revisar esses orçamentos mensalmente e defini-los anualmente? Este nível de atenção é suficiente? Atribuímos a responsabilidade em toda a empresa por cada grupo principal de custo não-pessoal a um gerente específico? Quão bem -sucedido esses gerentes têm sido reduzidos custos ao longo do tempo? Os custos não -venos e melhoram seus controles para fazer as alterações permanecerem. Reinhard Messenböck
• Establish a low-cost culture and be innovative. Guidelines and policies for nonpersonnel costs should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are appropriate. Additionally, companies should look for opportunities to apply innovations, such as big data and digitization, to improve their cost position.

A global bank adopted these practices in its cost-management system to implement an effective program to control nonpersonnel costs and manage future cost pressures. For example, the bank established a new cost report to help senior managers stay focused on the program and to provide a channel for escalating issues. The central controlling function used the report to communicate quarterly results to the management board and to offer action-oriented insights by highlighting implementation risks and expenditures that exceeded budgeted amounts. The new report was integrated into the existing set of business reports provided to top management. The bank also introduced cost dialogues among business units to foster cost reduction efforts. These discussions were an opportunity for business units to agree on approaches to optimizing costs, such as through targeted reductions in service levels. To create a fact base for the cost dialogues, each business unit that provided services to internal clients was required to describe the cost drivers underlying its services.

Getting Started

For many companies, achieving excellence in nonpersonnel costs represents a major untapped opportunity. By utilizing a comprehensive database of cost drivers and benchmarks, companies can identify the right costs to improve, set the right targets, and apply the right measures to achieve and sustain results.

To assess their starting point for using a driver-based program to reduce nonpersonnel costs, executives can ask themselves the following questions:

• How big is our nonpersonnel-cost base and how has it developed over time?
• What are our nonpersonnel-cost groups, subgroups, and drivers?
• How widely dispersed is authority for nonpersonnel budgets throughout the company?
• Which factors do we consider in determining budgets for nonpersonnel costs? What processes do we use to review those budgets on a monthly basis and set them annually?
• How much attention do we give to managing the nonpersonnel-cost base? Is this level of attention sufficient? Have we assigned companywide responsibility for each major nonpersonnel-cost group to a specific manager? How successful have these managers been in driving down costs over time?
• Have senior executives reached a consensus on the biggest opportunities for reducing nonpersonnel costs?
• Do we systematically benchmark our nonpersonnel costs internally—among business units and over time—and externally?

For many companies, the answers to questions like these will point to significant opportunities to reduce their nonpersonnel costs and improve their controls for making the changes stick.