Our Latest Thinking on Cost Excellence

Companies can use a category-specific analysis to identify the best alternatives to conventional sourcing strategies.

A holistic, outcome-based cost management approach that’s part of an enterprise-wide transformation can change an organization’s business for the long term and allow it to operate at its full potential.

Leaders needn’t wait for a crisis. A playbook exists for building an always-on, disciplined approach to cost excellence.

Most company efforts to reduce expenses fail. Four challenges block the way: two reflecting what costs get cut, and two related to how value is delivered.

Organizations’ biggest cost is usually operations, making it the first place to seek efficiency and productivity improvements to fund the future.

As the global business landscape grows more complex and politically fraught, companies are struggling to balance cost reduction, supply chain resilience, and access to key markets.

Governments that engage in strategic cost optimization can recoup 10% of costs—or more—on a whole-of-government basis using existing tools.

Rethinking organization design does more than eliminate unnecessary expenses. It aligns decisions and resources with strategic goals, and promotes sustained performance.

In an increasingly turbulent world, the need for and the challenges of corporate change remain remarkably persistent. Empirical insights reveal how change leaders can beat the odds.

Having an emotionally strong workforce makes it likelier that organization-wide changes will succeed. Cultivating it means helping people fulfill four fundamental human needs.

Reaching a higher, value-adding level of support function maturity isn’t a distant vision but a tangible goal that can be achieved with purposeful action.

Too often, IT projects fail to live up to their hype. Why does it keep happening—and how can it be fixed?

Making IT a core element of a cost initiative allows the organization to optimize operations, reduce spending, improve service delivery, and enhance competitiveness and efficiency.

Does your company need custom GenAI solutions, or are off-the-shelf products the better choice? BCG’s Rob Derow discusses the factors to consider when making these decisions.

Companies have reinvented their business models, IT architecture, and ways of working. So why are they taking an outdated—and largely unsuccessful—approach to ERP?

To thrive during turbulent economic times, health systems can learn from the aviation industry, which embraced novel diversification approaches to maintain revenue stability and improve profitability.

Telcos’ five-year performance record in terms of total shareholder return and value creation is below average—but an analysis of the top-ranked players shows how companies can overcome the industry’s challenges.

Demand is solidifying for products that use biological processes and genetically modified microorganisms in place of traditional production methods. But for change to happen, costs must come down.

BCG's Cory Kaplin explores the role that behavior, culture, and productivity play in helping companies achieve their cost and growth ambitions.