Organisations often struggle to understand which activities actually create value for stakeholders, and exactly what influences the costs of their processes. Without that knowledge, they can’t be sure what impact a change in one area of their business will have on activities elsewhere. As a result, ill-conceived cost-cutting projects risk damaging overall performance.

Centrix provides organisations with a decision-making framework that helps them create cost reduction programmes that are both effective and sustainable, and which are delivered as part of a wider change management programme aimed at building organisational capability. An element of that framework is the Centrix Economic Value Assessment (CEVA). CEVA divides everything an organisation does into activities that add value and those that don’t.

Armed with that knowledge, we then work with clients to choose the right cost reduction strategies. That may involve moving processes offshore, where labour costs are lower, rationalising applications to reduce support costs, or moving to a cheaper consolidated or virtualised infrastructure. It could mean aggregating services into packages that give business units agreed levels of service at a clear price per user. And it may involve adopting governance models that ensure changes to services in one part of the organisation don’t cause unexpected headaches for other teams.

Using this approach, Centrix helps clients cut costs by 10 to 20 per cent, while sustaining or enhancing service. At the same time, we help clients develop a culture that allows them to continue to look for ways to reduce costs in the long term.