Any business can cut costs on a one-off basis. It takes a great deal more sophistication to drive continuous cost competitiveness while also preserving or enhancing customer value. To ensure cost competitiveness is front of mind, a business' strategy must explicitly focus on cost transformation and management.
However, nothing happens without people. For the effective execution of a cost-transformation and management strategy, people need both to be aligned to the organisation's purpose and to respond in ways that keep the organisation agile in the face of destabilising influences. It's easy for competitors to copy a leading cost-transformation and management strategy, so people must be motivated as part of their everyday responsibilities to continuously improve cost competitiveness.
