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Cost Management

Cost Management Consulting

Cost management consulting that goes beyond cutting: see what every product, customer and process truly costs - then decide where to grow, fix or exit.

Cost management consulting is usually sold as cost cutting. We do the opposite first: make every cost visible and correctly assigned, so the cuts - and the investments - land where the margin actually lives. 150+ cost models built across 30+ countries since 2010.

Cutting blind is how companies shrink

The classic cost programme starts with a target - "10% across the board" - and ends eighteen months later with the same cost base and less capability. Across-the-board cuts treat every cost as equally bad, because nobody can see which costs are buying profitable work and which are subsidising losses.

The companies that manage costs well do something different: they invest in cost intelligence first. Once you can see what each product, customer, order and process truly costs, most "cost problems" reveal themselves as pricing problems, mix problems or process-design problems - each with a sharper, smaller, better-aimed fix than a blanket cut.

The 7 dimensions of a cost model that works

Twenty-five years of building cost models taught us that they fail in predictable places. We assess and build along seven dimensions - each one a discipline in its own right:

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The free Profit Check scores your organisation on these dimensions in 12 to 15 minutes - it is the same framework we use on day one of an engagement.

How an engagement runs

  1. Diagnose (3 weeks, fixed fee). The ProfitAudit 360 builds a working TDABC model on your data and scores all seven dimensions. You see where margin is created and destroyed - usually for the first time.
  2. Decide. The margin roadmap ranks actions by impact: reprice these contracts, redesign that service pattern, consolidate this complexity, exit that channel. Cuts appear on the list only where they belong.
  3. Embed (4-8 weeks). The model goes live, your team gets certified, and cost intelligence becomes a monthly management routine instead of a one-off project.

What makes us different from a generalist firm

  • One method, deep. We only do cost and profitability modelling with TDABC. No bench of juniors learning on your project.
  • Fixed fees. Scope agreed before work starts. Cost consultants who can't predict their own costs are a bad sign.
  • A system, not a study. Every engagement ends with a model your team runs - we design ourselves out.
  • Honest about cutting. Sometimes the answer is a cut. When it is, you'll make it knowing exactly what it buys you - and what it doesn't.

Frequently asked questions

What does a cost management consultant do?

Builds the visibility to manage costs as a system: what each product, customer and process truly costs, where margin is created and destroyed, and which actions - pricing, redesign, consolidation, cuts - improve profit without shrinking capability.

How is this different from cost reduction consulting?

Cost reduction starts with a savings target and works backwards. We start with cost truth and work forwards - many engagements end with prices going up and selected investments increasing, because the model showed that was where the profit was.

What is the 7-dimension framework?

Our assessment structure for cost-management maturity: allocation, profitability visibility, pricing, decision support, process design, data & technology, and tools & governance. The free Profit Check scores all seven in 12 to 15 minutes.

Where do companies usually start?

With the three-week ProfitAudit 360 diagnostic: a working cost model on your own data, the whale curve of your portfolio, and a ranked margin roadmap. Fixed fee, agreed before we start.

See your costs before you cut them

Score your cost-management maturity in 12 to 15 minutes with the free Profit Check.

Start here

Find out where your hidden margin lives.

The Profit Check takes 12 to 15 minutes. No data upload. You get a personalised profitability diagnostic.

Proof

A distributor in New Zealand. €1.335M of cost-to-serve made visible, then halved, and 830 loss-making customers brought down to 295.

Read the case study →

Who you would be talking to

Miguel Guimarães, Founding Partner

Cost and profitability practitioner for 25+ years. Lectured alongside Professor Robert S. Kaplan at the CFO conference in Amsterdam (2009).

Call +351 910 313 731

Workshops20-21 Oct · Online, ZoomReserve a seat

Miguel Guimarães

Reviewed by

Miguel Guimarães

Founding Partner, Cost and Profitability Consulting

More than 150 Time-Driven ABC engagements across 11 sectors since 2010, working within the Kaplan and Anderson framework.

About the author →

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Most read
  1. 1Time Driven Activity Based Costing
  2. 2Cost-to-Serve Analysis
  3. 3The Whale Curve
  4. 4TDABC vs ABC
  5. 5Customer Profitability Analysis
  6. 6Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) and Break-Even Analysis
  7. 7Make-or-Buy and Relevant Costs
  8. 8Methods & Frameworks: how we cost, defensibly
  9. 9Manufacturing Solutions
  10. 10Costing Methods Around the World