Services
Costs and organisation
When the message is ‘We urgently need to bring costs down here’, it is rarely only a price or cost problem. Organisational and capacity bottlenecks in purchasing often play a part as well – and these can be resolved.
I am happy to support you in both areas. Although they are closely linked in substance, each can be handled separately.
Krahl & Partner Consulting SL works with clients in Europe in two areas of work: Reducing existing costs (focus on EBIT) and designing an organisation that secures the savings on a lasting basis. The scope, duration and fees of the consulting service are set out in writing in advance.
Reducing costs
Starting point
The current cost structure has never been properly analysed. Key figures are fragmented – stored in the ERP system, in departmental spreadsheets, and in the heads of two long-tenured employees. Savings targets are imposed top-down as across-the-board percentages, with no transparent, traceable derivation of their source. Finance cannot match reported savings to the P&L, procurement looks ineffective, and fact-based management is not feasible.
Approach
First, we create transparency from the data already available internally: Analysis of spending by person responsible, cost type, site and underlying contract (building a ‘spent cube’). We then work with the teams to develop cost reduction measures and prioritise them by impact and effort. Measures that can be implemented quickly and have a major impact (‘low-hanging fruit’) are handled first – even if they do not seem very innovative in terms of method. Measures with little benefit are dropped rather than being kept in the report merely for the sake of completeness.
The sequence of the measures and the basis for measuring them are agreed before the first step. Potential that does not show up in the P&L was never potential. And a saving that puts supply at risk is not a saving either. That is why what gets implemented first is what the company can sustain over the long term – and not what looks best in the first meeting.
Organisation and teams
Starting point
Savings that only live in presentations disappear as soon as no one is actively tracking them. Measures are collected but never turned into action. After a reorganisation, many employees fall back into old patterns because the new roles were never clearly defined. Improvement ideas from development and production fade away – and eventually, people stop submitting them altogether.
Approach
The work takes place where the process runs, together with the managers who are responsible for it every day. What gets clarified is who is responsible for what after the reorganisation, what they decide, based on which figures and in which regular meeting. This route takes longer than an external report. In return, nobody in the organisation questions the results afterwards.
The managers in these projects are not just recipients of information but active decision-makers at the table. They are supported in the first weeks after the reorganisation, when the first decisions have to be made, and not four weeks beforehand in the training room.
How does a collaboration come about?
The scope, project duration and conditions of the consulting engagement are set down in writing before the work begins. No prices are listed on this website: the cost of the engagement depends on the specific content of the consulting work, which is clarified in the first conversation. A fixed day rate is usually agreed for the engagement.
What happens after you get in touch?
- Initial conversation.
Description of your current situation and joint definition of the work packages for a possible engagement. - Proposal. The engagement, project content and objectives, duration and terms are set down in writing before the project starts.
Frequently asked questions
What costs does a consulting engagement involve?
The scope of the consulting work determines the costs; a reliable figure can only be given after the first conversation. As explained above, the scope, duration and fee model are set down in writing before the project starts. Prices are not stated on this website.
And what if the problem is not only based in costs but also in the purchasing organisation?
That is the other important area of a consulting engagement in purchasing, and it often decides whether the saving lasts. The two areas can be commissioned separately or in combination.
Where do you stand at the moment?
Briefly describe what it is about: subject, scale and timeframe.