What is the aim of this course?

Every company has to control costs in order to survive and prosper. Therefore, many firms on regular basis perform cost reduction projects. Cost reduction project 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. There 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 be also 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:

1. How to identify potential savings, especially quick wins

2. How to optimize processes

3. How to analyze investments

4. How to carry out make-or-buy analysis

5. 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 Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B, and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated in total 2 billion of 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 now are 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 124 000 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, tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excels as well as additional presentations, 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 modification, 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, 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 how to make sure that they don’t impact quality or efficiency. We will use that 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, 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 ahead of deadlines high-quality products.

To sum it up, the course will help you become an expert in cost reduction, cost-cutting on 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, owners/founders of businesses that need better 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 tones of analyses, tricks, hints that will significantly improve the speed with which you understand, analyze the business 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:

1. How to identify potential savings, especially quick wins

2. How to optimize processes

3. How to analyze investments

4. How to carry out make-or-buy analysis

5. How to spend less

You can also ask me any question either through the discussion field or by messaging me directly.

How the course is 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, 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, 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, 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 be able also to download many additional resources

1. Useful frameworks and techniques

2. List of resources useful during performance improvement projects

3. Selected analyses shown in the course

4. Links to additional presentations, articles, and movies

5. 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 make-or-buy analysis in practice

• Analyze in Excel potential improvements in Retail, FMCG on the level of McKinsey, BCG, 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