Cost Transparency
Our approach to solving problems associated with large and complex operating costs
Cost Transparancy
Projective Group has developed a powerful approach to solving problems associated with large and complex operating costs. Our solution helps clients better understand the costs of activities and services that drive their total cost base and then provides solutions to increase efficiency and lower overall cost.
This solution provides the transparency of operating costs in a way that business leaders can clearly understand and shows them where they are spending their money. For example, how much are Cyber Security services costing and is that too much or not enough? What is the cost of your outsourced services? How many outsourced workers do you have working on each of your activities and systems? Who are your most expensive suppliers and vendors and what services are they providing? Quite often, clients will not have this level of information or it is too complicated to gather and it is this knowledge that really helps decision makers to optimise and better manage their cost base.
Our solution has delivered results. We focus first on establishing a clear view of the costs which goes to very granular levels of detail, in a way that business leaders can easily understand and challenge. This ‘Service Catalogue’ ensures that activities, services and systems are represented in a way that is meaningful. It allows them to analyse their costs, from the most expensive to the least expensive. This information is shown in a way that differentiates from other methods and leads to discussions about whether services are good value for money versus what is actually needed. This is how efficiency and optimisation actions become clearer.
As well as internal drivers to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, market trends are also driving demand for this solution. External regulators are emphasising how important it is that banks remain operationally resilient and to respond effectively, businesses must have a strong grip on their processes, the interdependencies and costs of operating them.
Make data led decisions about how to transform and operate
Our approach
Achieving cost transparency can be broken down into three steps.
The first is the discovery phase, where we work with the client to understand how they operate and assess how mature they are in cost management. The second phase focuses on building a granular, data driven view of services and activities that the wider business can easily understand. This ‘Service Catalogue’ accelerates the process of identifying efficiencies. The third phase is about implementation and change – maturing that information, further improving transparency detail and executing on a cost management focused plan of action.
First stage
We will spend about four weeks in the first stage, gathering information for a maturity assessment. We use this to playback information on their current cost management maturity state. This covers areas including governance, accountabilities, information, data quality and overall effectiveness. Once we have completed the maturity assessment, we present our findings to the client.
Second stage
The second step focuses on client priorities, using information identified in the maturity assessment. It will include ensuring that there is clear transparency of the costs of activities and services at a detailed level and represented via a ‘Service Catalogue’. It will provide crucial insights for leaders and managers. This phase can take anything from three to six months depending on scale and appetite. This is also where Projective Group differentiates because we have experts from both our Data practice and our Transformation practice working closely together : the data is critical to the success, but so is the experience and mindset that our people in change management and transformation bring.
Third stage
The third, and final step, is to implement a longer-term cost management model with appropriate governance and tooling that’s delivers cost transparency supported by robust controls. The timeline will depend on the scope and scale but we are outcome focused and deliver incremental and iterative change so that progress is continuous. This helps build trust and confidence in the approach and plan. Clients can have their own teams working on all of these stages and we can partner with them throughout. This combination is why we have built success and long term trust with our clients.
Why Projective Group?
Projective Group has strong credentials and huge experience in delivering cost management solutions. Having worked with clients using our approach for many years, we can say with confidence that we know what we are doing.
To achieve cost transparency, you need a team of strong data and transformation professionals. The successful implementation of this solution relies on having a mix of these people and skills. We have these expert teams.
Clients are using more and more third-party solutions, and this increases both complexity and costs. At the same time, business models are under pressure from ever greater competition. This is why the demand for a better understanding of internal operating costs is increasing, which cannot be met from only an ‘accounting view’ of costs.
At the heart of what we deliver is a service catalogue – a catalogue of all the different activities and services that a client ( bank ) provides and how much they each cost. This is a structured hierarchy from high level to low level. The catalogue is not just for business leaders, it is also for the people who run operations and functions, so that everyone from the Head of Operations to HR to Finance can each see how much their department is costing. This leads to better and more constructive conversations – and constructive confrontations which are both data and evidence based.
The goal is to ensure that our clients attain and implement improved commercial decision-making.
At Projective Group we don’t build solutions for our clients; we build solutions with them.