Operations
The cost programme nobody believes in
When the savings are reported but never felt, the problem is usually how the programme was designed, not how hard people worked.
- Written by
- Elena Marchetti
- Published
- Length
- 8 min read
Every finance director knows the feeling. The programme dashboard shows savings ahead of target. The monthly accounts show costs roughly where they were. Somewhere between the two, the benefits evaporated.
Where savings go to hide
- Savings counted against a baseline nobody agreed.
- Headcount removed in one team and quietly rehired as contractors in another.
- Process changes that moved work between functions rather than removing it.
The underlying issue is usually that the programme targeted budgets rather than work. Cost sits in how work flows across a business — the handoffs, rework and exceptions — and no single budget holder owns the whole of it.
Cut the work, and the cost follows. Cut the cost, and the work finds another budget.
A ledger finance will sign
The simplest discipline is a single benefits ledger, agreed with finance before the programme starts and reconciled against the management accounts every month. It is less exciting than a dashboard and considerably more honest.