Are Your Costs Too Low? - Value Dynamics LLP - UK.COM

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Are Your Costs Too Low?   Perspectives on the Management of the Cost Base

Any  fool  can  cut  costs  –  and  most  do.  

  Within  a  day  of  acquiring  Cadbury,  before  the  ink  was  dry  on   the  contract,  Irene  Rosenfeld,  Kraft’s  CEO,  was  announcing  $2   billion  of  cost  cutting.    How  utterly  predictable!    How   depressing!    How  unimaginative!    But  most  important,  how   puzzling!  

Costs are not the basis of a strategy, but the result of putting it in play.

You  pay  £11.4  billion  for  a  thriving  company  and  the  very  first  thing   that  you  choose  to  announce  are  cuts.    How  on  earth  can  Kraft  know   that  Cadbury’s  costs  are  too  high  rather  than  too  low?    What   evidence  does  Kraft  have  –  that  presumably  the  Board  of  Cadbury   either  did  not  have  or  that  it  misinterpreted  –  to  demonstrate  that   Cadbury  has  for  years  been  systematically  overinvesting  in,  say,  new   brand  development  or  advertising  or  product  quality  or  working   capital  or  wages?      

ON  COST  STRATEGY    

When  you  acquire  a  company  –  particularly  if  you  have  Kraft’s   wretched  track  record  of  stodgy  growth  and  insipid  innovation  –   presumably  you  buy  it  for  its  potential  to  inject  some  imagination,   energy  and  leadership  into  he  system  –  not  simply  to  become   another  victim  of  your  own  malaise.   Wouldn’t  it  have  been  wonderful  if  instead  Rosenfeld  had   announced:   “We’re  immensely  proud  of  becoming  the  new  owners  of  Cadbury   and  the  enthusiastic  stewards  of  its  future  success.    We  bought  it   because  it  is  the  best  FMCG  business  in  Europe.    We  bought  it   because  it  is  a  better,  more  talented,  more  innovative  company   than  our  own.    With  immediate  effect,  we  are  investing  $2  billion  in   4  highly  innovative,  global  projects  that  will  be  designed,  led  and   managed  by  the  existing  Cadbury  management.    We  want  to  draw   upon  this  talent,  to  learn  from  it,  and  to  rediscover  for  ourselves  the   difficult  and  rare  art  of  new  brand  development.    No  one  in  Cadbury   will  lose  their  job.    On  the  contrary,  we  are  investing  $25  million   over  the  next  three  years  in  a  development  initiative  to  make  even   better  use  of  the  assets  and  skills  of  Cadbury  that  we  believe  were   neglected  by  its  management  over  the  last  20  years.    The  Cadbury   cost  base  is  simply  far  too  low.    In  our  eyes,  the  company  woefully   underinvested  in  its  extraordinary  people  and  as  a  result   surrendered  market  opportunities  that  we  would  say  truly   “belonged”  to  Cadbury.    Over  the  next  5  years,  as  Kraft  makes  up  for   past  shortfalls  in  capital  investment,  we  will  see  Cadbury  achieve  the   success  that  it  deserves.”   My  point  is  not  that  Kraft  should  necessarily  add  to  Cadbury’s  cost   base  (Irene  Rosenfeld  may  well  be  doing  the  right  thing)  but  merely   to  argue  that  in  business  generally  there  is  a  pathological  bias  in   favour  of  cutting  costs  and  against  adding  to  costs  –  and  that  there   can  be  no  rational  basis  for  this  bias.  

A  cost  strategy  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  it  is  a  strategy,  defined   as  a  unique  way  of  adding  value,  then  costs  are  simply  a  measure  of   the  monetary  effort  required  to  execute  it;  if  cost  is  the  focus  of   attention,  then  strategic  thinking  is  superfluous.    All  that  is  required   is  the  determination  to  cut  costs.    Toyota  is  not  the  cost  leader  in  its   industry  because  of  the  ruthlessness  of  its  cost  cutting  but  because   of  the  radically  original  assumptions  underpinning  its  production   system.    Its  costs  are  the  outcome  of  its  operations  strategy,  not  vice   versa.    This  strategy  has  involved  nothing  less  than  the  wholesale   reinvention  of  the  technology  of  mass  production.   Costs  are  not  the  basis  of  a  strategy,  but  the  result  of  putting  it  in   play.    If,  when  executed,  the  strategy  proves  to  be  uncompetitive,  it   is  invariably  the  strategy  that  is  flawed,  not  the  costs  that  are  too   high.    The  most  prevalent  source  of  corporate  failure  is   management’s  conviction  that  their  costs  are  out  of  line  rather  than   that  their  strategy  is  misconceived.    The  majority  of  firms  that  are   destroying  wealth  are  doing  so  by  focussing  their  attention  on   reducing  their  cost  base  rather  than  reinventing  their  strategy.         Napoleon  argued  that  it  was  a  poor  general  who  relied  upon  the   bravery  of  his  troops  to  win  battles.    In  the  same  vein,  we  shall   suggest  that  it  is  a  poor  CEO  who  relies  upon  the  efficiency  of  his   operation  to  earn  economic  profits.       All  genuine  strategies,  by  definition,  entail  differentiation;  but  cost   cannot  be  differentiated.    Costs  are  different  because  strategies  are   different.    Thus,  the  choice  of  strategy  precedes  the  estimate  of   costs.    Questions  about  performance  concern  not  the  magnitude  of   the  cost  but  the  strength  of  the  strategy.   Costs  are  the  inputs  required  to  achieve  an  output.    The  choice  of   output  is  the  task  of  strategy.    Since  outputs,  in  order  to  be   competitive,  must  be  unique,  it  makes  no  sense  to  compare  the   costs  of  competitors.    For  example,  comparing  Porsche  costs  with   Ferrari  costs,  or  even  Volvo  costs,  is  meaningless.    The  only   competitive  comparison  worth  making  is  between  the  strategies  of   these  companies.    The  only  cost  comparison  worth  making  is   between  each  company’s  cost  base  and  the  market’s  perceived   value  of  the  offering  to  which  it  gives  rise.    In  other  words,  costs   should  be  compared  with  prices,  not  with  competitors.   Copyright©2012 Value Dynamics LLP

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Are your costs too low?

It  is  the  strategy  of  a  company,  not  its  management,  which   essentially  sets  the  cost  base  of  the  business,  that  establishes  the   terms  of  competition  and  that  defines  the  metrics  of  performance,   including  efficiency.       Thus,  cost  pressures  are,  in  reality,  strategic  pressures  in  disguise.     When  a  company  finds  its  margins  are  falling,  looking  to  the  cost   base  for  a  solution,  such  as  finding  ways  of  slashing  prices  without   decimating  margins,  is  invariably  mistaken.    It  is  the  business  model   that  is  being  questioned,  usually  for  being  insufficiently  distinct  from   competitors.   British  Airways  has  been  cutting  costs  for  as  long  as  anyone  can   remember,  but  the  source  of  their  difficulty  lies  in  their  legacy   business  model.    No  amount  of  cost  cutting  is  going  to  return  their   business  model  to  long-­‐term  profitability.    When  was  the  last  time   that  you  heard  Stelios  bang  on  about  “headcount  reduction”  or   “back  office  efficiency”  or  “operational  excellence”?    The  brilliance   of  the  easyjet  strategy  has  released  the  airline  from  the   demoralising  effect  of  having  to  think  of  their  business  in  these   terms.   In  effect,  strategy  is  the  technique  of  thinking  that  renders  cost   management  superfluous.    An  effective  strategy  makes  operational   efficiency  a  second-­‐order  activity.   ON  COST  MANAGEMENT     Costs  are  best  managed  by  not  managing  costs  directly.    This  is  an   example  of  the  oblique  principle,  first  formulated  explicitly  by  John   Kay  when  arguing  that  financial  targets  tend  to  be  counter-­‐ productive.    Aiming  for  X  is  rarely  the  best  way  of  achieving  X.    For   example,  focussing  on  one’s  own  happiness,  according  to  JS  Mill,   was  a  recipe  for  unhappiness.    He  discovered  late  in  life  that  the   best  way  to  be  happy  was  to  focus  on  the  happiness  of  others.     Likewise,  profit  in  business  tends  to  be  maximised  when   management  focuses  its  attention  on  customers  rather  than   shareholders.    Jim  Collins’  research,  reported  in  “Built  to  Last”,   showed  that  those  companies  that  made  profit  their  primary  goal   were  less  profitable,  on  average,  than  those  that  chose  “higher-­‐ order”  goals.    Armies  discovered  long  ago  that  soldiers  fight  best   when  they  are  fighting  for  each  other  rather  than  for  King  and   country.       Costs  are  no  exception.    They  too  are  best  managed  obliquely.    We   shall  look  at  three  companies,  all  in  the  same  industry,  which  have   managed  their  costs  supremely  well  by  focussing  on  something   other  than  cost.    They  each  invented,  at  a  particular  stage  in  their   history,  a  highly  distinctive  competitive  strategy  that  enabled  their   cost  base  to  be  managed  as  a  second-­‐order  activity  rather  than  the   primary  focus  of  attention.   Managing  cost  through  managing  price:  the  case  of  Ford   Henry  Ford  is  famous  for  the  invention  of  the  assembly  line  -­‐  but  this   is  to  misunderstand  his  genius,  or  at  least  to  ignore  his  own   explanation  for  his  success.    Ford  got  to  the  idea  of  mass  production   by  first  imagining  the  possibility  of  mass  marketing.    He  started  with   a  hypothetical  price,  not  a  cost.    He  asked  himself,  “How  many  cars   would  I  sell  if  the  price  were  just  $500?”    The  answers  so  excited   him  that  he  put  his  mind  to  finding  a  way  of  “making  the  price”.    It   was  this  “transitional  object”  that  led  to  the  assembly  line.    As  Ted   Levitt  put  it,  “Mass  production  was  the  result,  not  the  cause,  of  his   low  prices”.  

This  is  how  Ford  himself  described  his  philosophy:   “Our  policy  is  to  reduce  the  price,  extend  the  operations,  and   improve  the  article.    You  will  notice  that  the  reduction  of  price   comes  first.    We  have  never  considered  any  costs  as  fixed.     Therefore  we  first  reduce  the  price  to  the  point  where  we  believe   more  sales  will  result.    Then  we  go  ahead  and  try  to  make  the  prices.     We  do  not  bother  about  the  costs.    The  new  price  forces  the  costs   down.”   In  short,  Henry  Ford  did  not  set  the  price  on  the  basis  of  the  cost;  he   set  the  cost  on  the  basis  of  the  price.    This  was  his  genius.       “The  low  price  makes  everybody  dig  for  profits.    We  make  more   discoveries  concerning  manufacturing  and  selling  under  this  forced   method  than  by  any  method  of  leisurely  investigation.”   Ford’s  insight  still  has  to  be  fully  appreciated  and  understood.    It  is   remarkable  how  many  business  people  still  to  this  day  set  prices  on   the  basis  of  their  costs,  rather  than  vice  versa.   Managing  cost  through  managing  resale  prices:  the  case  of  General   Motors   General  Motors  managed  its  costs  very  differently  from  Ford.    Alfred   P  Sloan  was  much  more  interested  in  the  depreciation  of  a  car’s   value  than  in  its  original  price.    According  to  Peter  Drucker,  who   consulted  to  Sloan  over  many  years,  the  main  objective  of  GM  under   Sloan  was  to  maximise  the  resale  value  of  its  cars,  thereby   encouraging  customers  to  trade  up  more  easily  and  more  quickly  to   ever  more  desirable  cars  in  the  GM  range.    The  “right  cost”  was  that   which  best  ensured  high  trade-­‐in  terms.   Sloan’s  strategy  was  based  on  3  assumptions  about  car  buyers:   1. American  buyers  of  cars  share  the  same  tastes  and  preferences   –  or,  in  economic  terms,  the  same  utility  function;  that  is,  all   Americans  rank  all  American  cars  by  preference  in  roughly  the   same  order;   2. The  only  reason  that  all  Americans  do  not  buy  the  same  car  (the   one  they  all  place  at  the  top  of  their  rankings)  is  that  not  all  of   them  can  afford  it;   3. In  other  words,  the  only  basis  for  segmenting  the  American  car-­‐ buying  population  is  income  –  and  the  only  criterion  of  purchase   is  affordability.     Copyright©2012 Value Dynamics LLP

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Are your costs too low?

These  were  brave  assumptions.  They  were  not  shared  by  Ford  or   Chrysler.  But  for  70  years,  they  were  true  enough  to  secure  for  GM   not  only  massive  leadership  in  its  chosen  market  but  also  its  iconic   position  as  possibly  the  greatest  creator  of  wealth  in  the  20th   century.    Only  in  the  early  1980s  did  these  assumptions  come  under   pressure  and  turn  false,  as  international  competition  intensified  and   consumers  developed  more  complex  buying  motives  –  ending  with   GM’s  bankruptcy  in  2009.       Sloan  was  brilliant  at  seeing  the  full  implications  of  his  bold  market   assumptions.    This  was  his  strategy,  an  operating  model  that  led  to   the  invention  of  the  divisionalised  (or  M-­‐form)  corporation:   •

If  affordability  is  the  measure  of  how  quickly  an  American  family   can  climb  the  rungs  of  their  preference  ladder  to  the  car  of  their   dreams,  then  the  resale  value  of  a  used  car  is  the  most   important  variable  under  management’s  control;  



The  higher  these  trade-­‐in  prices  can  be  kept,  relative  to   competitors,  the  faster  the  buyers  can  upgrade  their  next  new-­‐ car  purchase  to  the  next  more  desirable  category  of  cars;  



As  buyers  climbed  their  preference  ladder  to  more  and  more   expensive  cars,  so  the  margins  on  these  cars  increased,   benefiting  GM’s  profitability  accordingly.  



Because  frequent  or  radical  changes  in  design  serve  only  to   depress  trade-­‐in  prices,  the  art  of  m anaging  these  resale  values   is  to  produce  long  runs  of  mass-­‐produced  vehicles  with  only   cosmetic  changes  from  one  year’s  model  to  the  next;  







And  because  American  families  are  all  climbing  the  same  ladder,   albeit  at  different  rates,  it  is  important  to  brand  the  cars  at  each   rung  differently,  so  that  each  model  clearly  signals  its  status  and   value;  hence  the  hierarchical  nature  of  GM  branding  –  from   Chevrolet  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder,  through  Pontiac,  then   Oldsmobile,  then  Buick,  and  finally  to  Cadillac  on  the  top  rung;   And  because  brands  are  best  managed  independently  by   dedicated  teams  of  managers,  designers  and  engineers,  Sloan   structured  his  organisation  into  semi-­‐autonomous  divisions,   each  one  focussed  on  its  unique  income  segment  of  the   American  population;   And  because  he  didn’t  want  his  5  strategic  business  units  to   compete  needlessly  with  each  other,  he  set  the  price  points  for   the  brands  in  such  a  way  that  there  was  just  enough  overlap   between  successive  brands  for  buyers  of  GM  cars  to  trade  up,   provided  that  used-­‐car  prices  were  kept  high.  

Sloan’s  genius  was  to  incentivise  the  American  family  to  climb  its   preference  ladder  to  more  and  more  expensive  cars  whose  margins   grew  in  proportion  to  their  prestige,  distinctiveness  and  brand   value.    By  concentrating  on  the  customer’s  life-­‐time  loyalty  to  GM,   Sloan  ensured  that  costs  were  of  secondary  importance  to  brand   value.      The  reputation  of  his  5  great  brands  drove  the  cost  base,   and  not  vice  versa.   Managing  cost  through  managing  organisational  learning:  the  case   of  Toyota   The  Toyota  Production  System  has  been  written  about  extensively.     One  version,  that  of  Steven  Spear  and  H  Kent  Bowen,  interprets  the   success  of  the  system  in  terms  of  a  small  set  of  tacit  rules  that  every   worker  and  supervisor  discovers  through  a  process  of  iterative   questioning  and  problem  solving.      

The  rules  that  guide  production  can  be  simply  stated:   •

Every  task  –  its  content,  sequence,  timing  and  outcome  –  must   be  specified  in  detail;  



Every  connection  between  (internal)  customers  and  suppliers   must  be  unambiguous  and  direct;  



For  example,  every  request  for  help  or  assistance  must  come   from  a  single,  pre-­‐specified  supplier;  



Every  product  must  follow  a  simple,  pre-­‐specified  path  (with  no   forks  or  loops)  –  and  at  every  step  to  a  specific  person  or   machine;  



For  example,  each  type  of  part  must  follow  only  one  production   path  through  the  plant;  



All  improvements  must  comply  with  a  scientific  methodology   whereby  problems  are  stated,  hypotheses  are  formulated,   experiments  are  conducted,  and  conclusions  are  formed  –   publicly  and  under  close  scrutiny  by  others.  

Workers  and  supervisors  absorb  these  rules  and  learn  how  to  do   their  work  not  by  being  instructed  by  managers  but  by  being  asked   questions  to  which  they  are  expected  to  discover  the  answer,   questions  such  as:   • • • •

How  do  you  perform  this  task?   How  do  you  know  you’re  doing  it  correctly?   How  do  you  identify  defects?   How  do  you  resolve  problems  arising  from  the  task?  

Under  this  form  of  Socratic  inquiry,  workers  not  only  take  ownership   of  their  own  learning  but  acquire  the  habit  of  critical  thinking  and  an   appetite  for  continuous  experimentation  and  improvement.    It  is  the   respect  paid  to  the  worker’s  desire  and  capacity  to  learn  that  puts   energy  into  the  system.    The  rules  themselves  are  not  the  secret.   Toyota’s  cost  base  is  managed  as  the  outcome  of  a  humanistic   process  whereby  every  employee  shares  the  responsibility  for  the   performance  of  the  firm.    

The  moral  of  these  three  stories  is  clear:  as  a  business   executive,  you  incur  a  cost  for  no  other  reason  than  to   pursue  a  strategy;  and  it  is  the  strategy,  not  the  cost,   that  determines  the  competitiveness  of  your  business.   Copyright©2012 Value Dynamics LLP

§ ON  COST  REDUCTION   There  is  a  common  prejudice  that  holds  that  business  costs  are   more  likely  to  be  too  high  than  too  low  –  that  taking  cost  out  leads   to  higher  levels  of  competitiveness  than  putting  costs  in.    Perversely,   executives  speak  frequently  of  cost  reduction  strategies  but  rather   rarely  about  cost  enlargement  strategies.    This  is  illogical.    A  level  of   cost  is  like  a  level  of  service  or  a  level  of  quality  –  the  aim  is  to  find   the  right  level,  not  the  minimum  level.   Both  in  theory  and  in  practice,  costs  tend  to  be  treated  as  “a  bad   thing”.    They  are  seen  as  being  too  high;  they  need  to  be  cut;  they   are  symptomatic  of  waste,  excess,  profligacy  and  irresponsibility.     Consultants  are  expected  to  reduce  costs,  not  add  to  them.    An   incoming  chief  executive  will  normally  want  to  rationalise  costs,  not   justify  them  or  grow  them.    Competitiveness  is  usually  defined  in   terms  of  the  cost  base  –  and  the  lower  the  better.    Predator   companies  will  traditionally  want  to  make  economies  in  their  newly   acquired  prey.    It  is  rare  acquirer  who  is  looking  to  “grow  the  cost   base”.   Why  is  this?    Why  is  there  an  assumption  that  costs  are  biased  on   the  high  side  rather  than  the  low  side?       Is  there  any  evidence,  for  example,  that  cost-­‐cutting  strategies   enrich  shareholders?    Do  investors  employ  managers  principally  to   strip  out  cost?    Tom  Peters  is  wont  to  point  out  that  cost  reduction   strategies  tend  to  reduce  revenues  at  an  even  faster  pace.    At  what   point  do  (or  should)  shareholders  step  in  and  say  “enough  is   enough;  change  the  strategy,  not  the  costs”.         In  capital  markets,  it  is  assumed  with  a  high  degree  of  reliability,   that  share  prices  are  unbiased  estimates  of  the  true  value  of  the   business.    In  other  words,  it  is  meant  to  be  just  as  difficult  to  buy  a   portfolio  of  shares  that  underperform  the  market  as  outperform  the   market.   Why  do  we  see  costs  differently?    Why  don’t  we  also  assume  that   costs  are  an  unbiased  estimate  of  the  optimal  investment  in  human   talent,  in  working  capital,  in  research  and  development,  in   advertising  and  sales,  in  investor  relations,  and  so  on?    Why  do  we   tend  to  believe  that  managers  are  sloppy  in  their  decisions  on  cost,   systematically  and  wantonly  paying  people  too  much,  holding   excessive  inventory,  recruiting  too  many,  travelling  too  much,  over-­‐ training  their  staff  and  supporting  bloated  research  departments.       When  did  you  last  hear  a  CEO  proclaim:    “Our  costs  are  simply  far   too  low.    Our  plants  have  become  alarmingly  efficient.    We  have   made  too  many  economies  in  our  operations.    Our  cost  base  is   perilously  low.    We  must  pay  our  people  more.    We  must  stop   skimping  on  inventory.      Our  suppliers  must  be  more  generously   remunerated  for  their  efforts.    We  must  raise  our  cost  base  to   something  closer  to  the  industry  average.”    And  yet  these  remarks   are  no  sillier  than  their  antithesis.   The  misconception  that  costs  are  biased  on  the  high  side  owes  a  lot   to  Michael  Porter’s  typology  of  generic  strategies.    In  this  famous   and  influential  theory,  Porter  distinguished  between  strategies  of   cost  leadership  and  strategies  of  differentiation.    Anyone  who  has   ever  taught  this  theory  to  managers  will  have  been  confronted  on   every  occasion  by  the  immediate  challenge:  “If  these  are  different   and  contrasting  strategies,  how  come  almost  every  market  leading   company  is  characterised  by  both  simultaneously?”    In  other  words,   how  can  one  become  a  cost  leader  without  being  different?    Why,   for  example,  are  the  vast  majority  of  global  brand  leaders  both   strongly  differentiated  and  highly  cost  efficient?    

Are your costs too low?

Indeed,  economies  of  scale  mean  just  that:  cost  is  a  function  of   scale,  and  scale  is  a  function  of  (relevant)  difference.    The  tiresome   and  obvious  fact  that  should  have  killed  this  theory  at  birth  –   namely,  that  almost  all  successful  companies  are  both  differentiated   and  cost  leading    –  would  seem  to  have  been  wilfully  ignored..    

As  an  aside,  it  is  intriguing  how  simple,  well-­‐known   and  incontrovertible  facts  can  so  easily  refute  so   many,  highly  publicised  and  commonly  accepted   principles  of  management.    Jeffrey  Pfeffer,  for   example,  has  shown  that  the  so-­‐called  “war  for   talent”  is  based  on  the  popular  misconception  that   the  best  companies  have  the  best  people,  an   assumption  for  which  there  is  barely  any  scientific   evidence.    By  demonstrating  that  there  is  no   evidence  for  this  assumption,  a  whole  host  of  HR   policies  has  been  shown  to  be  useless  and   wasteful.   We  shall  argue  that  any  cost  carried  by  a  business  is  just  as  likely  to   be  too  low  as  too  high.    In  other  words,  we  assume  that  cost  levels   in  a  business  are  not  biased  one  way  or  another.    In  the  case  of   inventory,  for  example,  as  many  materials,  parts  and  products  will   be  under-­‐stocked  as  over-­‐stocked.    In  the  case  of  quality,  as  many   products  will  be  under-­‐engineered  as  over-­‐engineered.    In  the  case   of  marketing,  as  many  service  levels  will  be  set  too  low  as  too  high.     In  the  case  of  compensation,  as  many  salaries  will  be  too  stingy  as   too  generous.    It  is  not,  for  example,  self-­‐evident  that  the  CEO  is   being  paid  too  much  –  or  too  little.  The  presumption  that  costs  are   more  likely  to  be  on  the  high  side  than  the  low  side  is  simply  sloppy   thinking  –  and  an  insult  to  earlier  (possibly  more  entrepreneurial)   generations  of  management  who  once  (boldly  and  against  the  odds)   chose  to  put  these  costs  in.    The  management  of  cost  is  never  as   easy  or  straightforward  as  simply  cutting  it.    It  is  as  difficult  to  cut   costs  profitably  as  to  raise  costs  profitably.    Disinvestment  is  as   skilful  as  investment.   If  firms  want  to  be  more  competitive,  then  their  strategy  is  as  likely   to  include  “upsizing”  as  “downsizing”,  “insourcing”  as  “outsourcing”,   and  “on-­‐shoring”  as  “off-­‐shoring”.    If  this  were  not  the  case,  then   management  would  be  easy.    We  would  simply  keep  “taking  cost   out”  until  there  were  no  costs  left  to  cut.    By  definition,  at  some   point,  we  would  have  over-­‐cut  costs.    As  a  working  hypothesis,   wouldn’t  it  be  wise  –  and  conformant  with  market  theory  –  to   assume  that  current  levels  of  cost  are,  on  average,  unbiased?       If  our  line  of  reasoning  is  valid  so  far,  then  certain  corollary   arguments  can  also  be  made:   The  rule  for  cost  control  should  be:  cut  back  on  those  existing  costs   that  are  not  germane  to  the  strategy  and  invest  in  those  costs  that,  if   they  were  to  exist,  would  strengthen  the  strategy.    The  benchmark   of  competitiveness  should  be  value  not  the  competition.  For   example,  James  Dyson  was  right  to  outsource  his  manufacturing  to   Malaysia  because  his  strategy  was  in  no  way  dependent  on  domestic   manufacturing  and  it  reduced  his  cost  base.    But  we  should  not  be   under  any  illusion  that  when  the  story  of  Dyson’s  global  success  is   finally  told,  it  will  focus  on  his  design  philosophy,  his  entrepreneurial   resilience  and  his  world-­‐beating  products;    it  is  unlikely  to  dwell  on   his  decision  to  off-­‐shore  his  manufacturing.      Cost  cutting  in  the   context  of  a  game-­‐changing  strategy  is  very  different  from  cost   cutting  as  the  only  game  in  town.    

Copyright©2012 Value Dynamics LLP

§ As  a  concept,  cost  leadership  is  as  meaningless  as  price  leadership   or  operational  leadership  or  working  capital  leadership.    Cost   leadership  makes  sense  only  in  the  context  of  a  commodity  market   which,  by  definition,  is  a  set  of  trading  conditions  characterised  by   an  absence  of  competitive  strategy.      Every  company  is  competing   on  the  same  terms.    Thus,  the  only  differentiating  variable  is  the   cost  base.    The  more  that  companies  are  seduced  into  believing  that   cost  leadership  is  a  viable  strategy,  the  more  commoditised  markets   become,  the  less  their  wealth-­‐creating  capacity  and  the  slower  the   growth  of  the  economy  of  which  they  are  a  part.       Recessions  bring  out  the  worst  in  cost  cutters.    It  is  irrational  for   costs  to  become  more  important  when  economic  conditions  are   difficult.    If  costs  are  important,  their  significance  should  not  vary  at   different  stages  of  the  business  cycle.    Perhaps  there  is  an  implicit   assumption  that  costs  have  something  to  do  with  affordability,  and   that  in  a  recession  firms  must  cut  back  on  costs,  not  because  they   don’t  produce  a  return,  but  because  there  isn’t  enough  money  to  go   round.    However,  a  cost  is  borne  not  because  it  can  be  afforded  but   because  it  leads  to  sufficient  revenue  to  cover  it.    Recession  is  a   lame  excuse  for  giving  up  on  strategy  and  choosing  instead  the  lazy   option  of  cost  reduction.   The  “back  office”  invariably  –  and  unfairly  -­‐  bears  the  brunt  of  every   efficiency  drive  and  change  initiative.    Why  should  the  back  office   provide  easier  pickings  for  cost  savings  than  frontline  services?     Cutting  costs  in  the  back  office  is  somehow  regarded  as  less  harmful   or  less  contentious  or  less  provocative  than  cutting  “front-­‐line   services”.    This  is  illogical.    It  suggests  that  when  these  costs  were   originally  put  in  they  were  massively  biased  towards  the  back  office   and  that  therefore  this  degree  of  slack  can  safely  be  cut  out.    A   recent  monograph  on  public  sector  efficiency  by  the  think  tank   Reform  reversed  this  logic  by  showing  that  waste  is  more  likely  to  be   a  feature  of  “front-­‐line  services”  than  of  the  back  office.   The  emphasis  that  top  management  places  on  cost  is  inversely   proportional  to  the  trust  they  place  in  their  middle  managers  to   make  responsible  decisions.  When  dealing  with  costs,  managers  are   more  often  assumed  to  be  profligate  than  frugal  –  and  generally  to   err  on  the  side  of  waste,  extravagance,  irresponsibility  and   indiscipline  –  hence  the  need  for  supervision.  Left  to  themselves,   most  managers  would  become  spendthrifts,  with  very  little  concern   for  shareholder  value,  particular  when  times  are  tough.    Indeed,  the   main  role  of  senior  management  is  to  rein  in  the  natural  exuberance   of  middle  managers.   The  traditional  model  of  management  has  the  unintended   consequence  of  making  cost-­‐cutting  the  default  option.    In  the   standard  version,  top  management  sets  the  strategy  and  everyone   else  executes  it.    Skilful  execution  is  defined  as  the  minimum  cost  to   deliver  the  strategy.  The  only  variable  subject  to  middle   management  discretion  is  operational  efficiency.    It  is  no  surprise   that  many  managers  interpret  this  rule  to  mean  “the  lower  the  cost   base  the  better”.    When  pressures  on  margins  increase,  better   execution  implies  even  lower  costs.    Managerialism  has  a  built-­‐in   bias  to  interpret  competition  in  cost  terms  rather  than  value  terms.     ON  COST  COMPETITIVENESS   Competitiveness,  defined  as  the  ability  to  compete  profitably,  is  set   by  the  firm’s  strategy,  not  by  its  costs.    There  are  many  companies   that  boast  the  highest  costs  in  their  industry  that  are  also  the  most   competitive  –  such  as  Porsche,  Prada,  Dyson  and  McKinsey.    Indeed,   the  most  valuable  brands  in  the  world  typically  combine  the  virtues   of  high  cost,  high  price,  high  perceived  quality,  and  high  profitability.     Low-­‐cost  brands  typically  under-­‐perform  their  higher-­‐cost  

Are your costs too low?

competitors.    This  was  the  main  finding  of  Paul  Farris  of  Harvard   Business  School,  when  he  researched  the  profit  structure  of  brand   leaders.   The  concept  of  competitiveness  is  often  misunderstood  and   misapplied.    If  it  is  to  be  used  at  all,  then  it  can  only  be  applied   logically  to  corporate  strategies  or  business  models  or  what  Porter’s   refers  to  as  a  company’s  “unique  mix  of  activities”.    A  cost  or  an   expense  cannot  be  described  as  competitive  any  more  than  can  a   revenue  stream  or  a  cash  flow.    These  are  simply  the  visible   manifestations  and  inseparable  elements  of  a  strategy.    Divorced   from  their  strategic  context,  a  particular  level  of  working  capital,  for   example,  cannot  meaningfully  be  called  either  competitive  or   uncompetitive.   The  popular  managerial  expression,  “relative  cost”,  is  equally   misleading.    Comparing  your  cost  with  a  competitor’s  cost  –  a   remarkably  popular  form  of  benchmarking  –  can  only  be  relevant  if   both  companies  are  competing  with  identical  strategies,  in  which   case  the  cost  base  is  carrying  the  entire  burden  of  delivering   profitability.    But  if  this  is  the  case,  the  problem  is  not  the  magnitude   of  the  cost  base  but  the  absence  of  strategy.    The  attention  of   management  should  not  be  focussed  on  relative  efficiency  but  on   the  need  for  a  differentiating  strategy.    In  short,  reliance  upon   efficiency  usually  betrays  an  absence  of  strategy.  The  rhetoric  of   “operational  excellence”  is  generally  camouflage  for  a  dearth  of   strategic  ideas.   The  way  that  firms  account  for  their  performance  accentuates  and   encourages  the  bias  away  from  strategic  vitality  and  towards   operational  efficiency.    A  good  indicator  of  the  general  bias  that   steers  managers  to  being  more  concerned  with  levels  of  cost  than   with  the  generation  of  revenue  is  the  extraordinary  importance  that   financial  and  management  accounts  give  to  costs  rather  than   revenues.    Revenues  are  normally  limited  to  a  single  line  in  the   accounts,  as  though  fate  or  some  exogenous  force  had  delivered  this   income  to  the  company  and  the  only  task  for  management  was  to   meet  this  demand  with  the  minimum  level  of  cost;  by  contrast,  costs   are  typically  disaggregated  into  numerous  lines,  as  though   profitability  depended  mainly  on  how  successfully  these  awkward   and  burdensome  penalties  on  the  firm  could  be  reduced.       Tim  Ambler  has  brilliantly  diagnosed  the  problem  as  follows:   “Any  board  of  directors  is  naturally  preoccupied  with  its  firm’s   wealth.    You  would  think  that  it  would  be  equally  preoccupied  with   generating  it,  but  the  astonishing  fact  is  that,  on  average,  boards   devote  nine  times  more  attention  to  spending  and  counting  cash   flow  than  to  wondering  where  it  comes  from  and  how  it  could  be   increased.”   The  role  of  accounting  should  be  to  understand  better  the  source  of   the  cash  flow.    Failing  that,  it  should  at  least  detect  any  backsliding   to  cost  management  as  a  surrogate  for  genuine  strategy.    A  useful   role  for  the  finance  department  could  be  to  provide  lead  indicators   of  any  change  in  the  strategic  health,  competitiveness,  or  overall   performance  of  the  firm,  focussing  particularly  on  those  “default   settings”  whereby  management  resorts  to  easy  short-­‐term  gains   that  are  rationalised  in  terms  of  “cutting  out  waste”  but  which  tend   to  emanate  from  managers  who  are  short  of  ideas  and  out  of  their   depth.   A  senior  management  team  that  is  unable  to  formulate  a  strategy   for  making  wealth-­‐creating  use  of  the  resources  available  to  it  has   every  right  to  reduce  the  headcount  provided  it  starts  with  its  own   heads.    Firing  others  simply  on  account  of  being  unable  to  find     Copyright©2012 Value Dynamics LLP

§

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gainful  employment  for  them  –  which  is  the  job  of  senior   management  –  is  all  the  evidence  that  shareholders  should  require   to  invite  these  senior  managers  to  find  work  elsewhere.  



A  NEW  PERSPECTIVE  ON  COST  AND  OPERATIONAL  EFFCIENCY   •















     

The  art  of  management  is  to  manage  a  business  in  such  a  way   that  the  need  for  operational  excellence,  continuous   improvement,  “right  first  time”,  cost  leadership,  process  re-­‐ design,  corporate  renewal,  cultural  change,  charismatic   leadership  and  financial  incentives  is  redundant  and  the   declared  pursuit  of  these  objectives  counts  as  a  clear  admission   of  failure.     When  executives  reach  for  these  remedies,  you  can  be  sure  that   the  business  has  been  mismanaged  and  that  failure  is  on  the   cards.  There  are  no  surer  signs  of  the  inadequacy  and   delinquency  of  corporate  leadership  than  that  1)  cost  efficiency   should  be  extolled  as  the  dominant  issue  facing  the  company   and  2)  the  tactics  of  outsourcing,  shared  services,  restructuring   and  other  short-­‐term  palliatives  are  being  paraded  as  the  main   drivers  of  profitability.       You  don’t  make  yoghurt,  you  make  the  conditions  and  the   yoghurt  makes  itself.”    Likewise,  you  don’t  manage  costs,  you   design  the  business  strategy  and  the  strategy  establishes  the   necessary  cost  base.    Costs  are  an  outcome  of  the  strategy,  not   the  goal  of  the  strategy.    Cost  efficiency  is  always  relative  to  a   strategy  or  to  a  business  model,  never  to  a  competitor  or  to  an   absolute  standard  or  benchmark.     Strategy  is  therefore  the  skill  of  staying  one  step  ahead  of  the   need  to  be  efficient.    As  soon  as  the  firm  starts  to  attract   competitors  and  pressures  on  cost  start  to  be  felt,  a  winning   strategy  will  already  have  been  invented  to  ensure  that  the   business  is  moving  into  a  new,  distinctive  and  unassailable   market  position  where  its  quasi-­‐monopolistic  power  enables  the   firm  to  be  a  price-­‐maker,  not  a  price-­‐taker  or  cost-­‐cutter.     The  true  test  of  the  innovative  capability  of  a  firm  is  that  it  never   needs  to  worry  about,  let  alone  wrestle  with,  the  cost   competitiveness  of  its  business  model.    Its  creativity  and   courage  are  of  a  quality  that  they  immunise  the  firm  against   ever  having  to  resort  to  such  mundane  and  mind-­‐sapping   activities  as  cost  reduction,  business  re-­‐organisation,  zero-­‐based   budgeting,  or  change  management.     The  job  of  accounting  is  to  keep  the  firm  honest  to  this  purpose.     Financial  accounts  should  be  designed  primarily  to  pick  up  signs   of  commoditisation  at  the  earliest  possible  stage  by  detecting   any  backsliding  to  policies  such  as  “taking  cost  out”,  or   “downsizing”,  or  “restructuring”,  or  “outsourcing”,  or  indeed   any  other  management  fad  that  is  being  used  as  a  surrogate  for   strategy.     Time  spent  on  strategies  of  cost  efficiency  is  time  stolen  from   the  much  more  important  and  wealth-­‐creative  activity  of   innovation,  differentiation  and  entrepreneurship.     A  poor  management  sees  its  job  as  scaling  its  workforce  to  fit  its   strategy.    If  the  strategy  is  stunted  and  unimaginative,  then  a   proportion  of  the  workforce  will  inevitably  be  made  redundant.     This  goes  by  the  euphemism  of  “headcount  reduction”.        















A  gifted  management  takes  the  talents  of  everyone  in  the   organisation  as  a  given,  and  pits  its  imagination  against  the   challenge  of  inventing  a  strategy  that  makes  maximum  use  of   everyone’s  capabilities.         It  is  questionable  whether  management  has  the  right  to  cut  the   workforce  to  suit  its  strategy;  its  moral  legitimacy  depends  upon   its  ability  to  find  market  opportunities  whose  capture  depends   upon  applying  the  talents  of  the  entire  workforce.    Indeed,  this  is   the  central  responsibility  of  senior  management.       If  it  cannot  do  this  (if  its  only  strategy  is  to  cut  costs)  then  it   should  step  down  and  give  other  management  teams  the  chance   to  do  so.    Put  another  way,  the  top  management  team  should   start  its  cost-­‐cutting  drive  with  itself.         Managerialism  is  steeped  in  an  instrumental  ethic,  where   employees  are  called  “human  resources”  or  “human  capital”  and   are  treated  as  “factors  of  production”  or  the  “agents  of   stakeholders”.    Kant’s  categorical  imperative  warns  us  against   treating  other  people  as  means,  rather  than  ends.    In  many   firms,  the  prevailing  model  of  management,  with  its  fixation  on   control,  coordination  and  compliance,  has  effectively   institutionalised  the  instrumental  treatment  of  other  people.     Managers  typically  get  to  a  better  result  by  thinking  of  the   organisation  as  the  means  to  the  fulfilment  and  betterment  of   individuals  than  as  an  end  in  itself.     The  lead  indicators  of  strategic  failure  are  typically  three:  1)  the   notion  of  “best  practice”  creeps  into  the  management  lexicon;  2)   the  practice  of  benchmarking  the  performance  of  competitors   takes  hold;  and  3)  business  managers  are  set  targets  to  match  or   exceed  the  benchmarked  performance  of  key  competitors   through  the  implementation  of  best  practice.     Most  firms  that  go  bankrupt  are  paragons  of  this  style  of   management.    Over  the  40  years  that  GM  gradually  moved   towards  Chapter  11,  there  wasn’t  a  single  quarter  in  which   management  missed  its  cost  reduction  targets  or  failed  to  “make   budget”.    Since  1970,  when  GM  first  chose  Toyota  as  its   benchmark,  its  remorseless  and  unwavering  pursuit  of   operational  excellence,  cost  leadership,  world-­‐class   manufacturing  and  best  practice  never  faltered.    Eventually  this   mindset  drove  the  business  bankrupt  –  as  cost  reduction   strategies  nearly  always  do  eventually.     The  story  of  GM  could  serve  as  the  epitaph  of  managerialism.  

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About Value Dynamics

 

Value Dynamics is a unique strategy consulting firm dedicated to addressing our client’s most critical business challenges, and discovering potential for optimum market and performance advantage.  

         

We secure unreasonable performance for clients.  

 

We  achieve  this  through;   … strategy  and  governance  framework,     … decision  making  and  rules,     … performance  planning  and  targets.  

     

We  use  the  principle  that  the  key  to  profitability  and  performance  is   exploiting  the  differences  rather  than  doing  the  same  as   competitors.    

   

• Led  by  the  client  problem,  we  build  test  beds  to  simulate  business   strategy  and  the  levers  of  success.     • We  simulate  interconnected  outcomes  in  the  productive  assets  of   business  such  as  customers,  cash,  brand,  sales  outlets,  etc.     • A  fully  joined  up  strategy,  management  performance  targets   (scorecards),  and  risk  mitigation  that  directly,  and  demonstrably,   contribute  to  achieving  the  mission.   • Proven  breakthroughs  at  the  London  Business  School  and  the   Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  drive  our  technique.  

         

Our clients benefit from:

 

The  Author  

Dr  Jules  Goddard   Jules  is  a  Non-­‐Executive  Director  of   Value  Dynamics, a  strategy   consultancy  based  in  London.  He  is   also  a  Senior  Fellow  at  London   Business  School.  

• Directly  engaging  with  our  knowledgeable  partners,  and  their   highly  commercial  perspectives  and  experiences.   • Analysing  the  nature  of  the  business  in  a  new  way,  using  a  new   lens,  uncovers  new  and  undiscovered  opportunities.     • Design  of  forward  looking  and  precise  solutions  and  targets.     • A  collaborative  and  inclusive  approach  with  transfer  of  k nowhow.   • Quicker  and  more  cost-­‐effective  interventions  compared  to   contemporize.   For  more  information  visit  the  company  website   www.valuedynamics.uk.com  

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