Cost Management

Leaner. Faster. Stronger. PEC’s approach to cost management infuses these essential qualities throughout an enterprise. We rapidly identify the deep-rooted issues affecting our clients’ cost structures and implement cost-transformation programs tailored to their strategic goals to create more agile, competitive businesses.

Strategic cost management isn’t just about cost reduction. It’s also about generating savings that don’t creep back, as well as building a sustainable cost structure that strengthens a cost-based competitive advantage and enables long-term growth. That’s why we focus on redesigning cost structures tactically and holistically to fuel both top- and bottom-line growth.

PEC’s holistic approach helps clients sustain efficiency and redirect resources to invest in innovation, promote growth, and capture value—enhancing their ability to win without having to repeat the same cost reduction effort in two or three years.

GENERAL & ADMIN

A performance and value acceleration transformation yields more impactful results than a traditional approach.

SELLING & MARKETING

PEC special situations team delivers turnaround and restructuring consulting services to clients facing profitability and liquidity crises.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

PEC’s cost advantage approach resets costs within a framework that is customized, precise, and thorough.

Strategy | Cost Reduction | Revenue Growth | Improved Balance Sheets | Executional Certainty | People Engagement

PEC’s Approach to Cost Management

Our cost management experts implement customized, industry-specific cost-transformation programs. We evaluate how companies can reduce or eliminate costs across the board—in overhead, supply chain, manufacturing or store footprint, and beyond—and reinvest those savings to capture new market opportunities and growth.

PEC Delivers Both Function-Specific and Cross-Functional Cost Excellence

  • Unlike one-dimensional cost reduction or restructuring plans, our approach to cost advantage yields long-term agility, efficiency, speed, and value.

    • Leaner. We enable leaders to do more with less. Applying our decades of expertise, we identify where and how to reduce costs, convert fixed costs to variable costs, and improve efficiency. We then rigorously prioritize cost reduction initiatives based on ROI to ensure that clients capture maximum value. Our advanced AI, digital, and technology capabilities make cost reductions stick—all underpinned by our industry leading change management approach. 

    • Faster. Our battle-tested cost strategy accelerates speed to value by establishing empowered, proactive program leadership that drives a consistent operational tempo across an enterprise. Bureaucratic roadblocks are replaced with rigorous governance and accountability, facilitating timely and thorough execution to accelerate cost reduction. We also ensure that changes are owned by line management and engage an organization to help it stick. 

    • Stronger. Strengthening an enterprise through effective cost management is fundamentally about change management. Our experts help build a culture that embraces a methodical approach to cost reduction—one that is deliberate, not sluggish—to ensure that these savings become a lasting part of your daily operations. 

  • We bring extensive expertise to support holistic cost transformations, including the following:

    • Zero-Based Budgeting. More than deploying one-time cost-reduction strategies, our approach to zero-based budgeting uses facts to decide how to liberate resources and make smart choices about where to allocate them. We anchor this approach in a culture of cost consciousness. 

    • Operational Excellence. Holistic value-chain transformation enhances service and quality, reduces costs, and mitigates risks—boosting efficiency and effectiveness. 

    • AI and Technology Cost Optimization. We help clients harness the power of traditional and generative AI to capitalize on near-term cost management opportunities while building productivity across functions. We also help them transform their IT functions into world-class, cost-efficient, technology functions that are strategic partners and digital business enablers. This means building up digital capabilities and increasing efficiency and simplification, across the board.  

    • Organization Design. A successful cost management program requires changing the organizational context in which employees perform to be more efficient and effective.

    • Pricing and Revenue Management. By transforming pricing, companies can drive significant value to the bottom line by transforming their pricing strategy and optimizing their marketing spend. We help clients build the capabilities, processes, and mindsets that unlock the power of their pricing and marketing functions—in both good times and bad. 

  • Strategic cost management requires unlocking short- and long-term savings while achieving context-specific business goals. Although the scope of actions and the timelines differ depending on the situation, our three-step approach delivers both speed and value:

    1. Provide a roadmap for taking out costs (4–6 weeks). We size cost-reduction opportunities that align with our clients’ overarching strategic goals and establish initiatives to realize value.  

    2. Capture near-term wins and design long-term initiatives (12–18 weeks). We help our clients realize real value quickly and lay the groundwork for longer-term cost-transformation initiatives. 

    3. Implement longer-term wins (6–12 months). To promote sustained value, we launch cost-transformation initiatives tied to long-term strategic goals and establish processes to ensure continuous cost management.