Case Study
Performance Mining - Sustainable Cost Reduction Opportunity Review
Strategy
Client
Global Investment Management & Life Insurance Company
Services
Performance Mining
Project Overview
The Client’s executive management required independent advisory and targeted expertise to improve expense ratios, through the identification and implementation of sustainable expense reduction opportunities, prior to converting to a public company. At the time, the Client was organized into seven, somewhat autonomous business units. Lack of visibility into project results and the corresponding organizational impact prevented management from optimizing the utilization of scare capital. Executive management and investment bankers sought to further improve expense ratios prior to transforming the company from private to public. As a previous “best practice” cost saving effort did not yield desired results, the Client required outside expertise to improve expense ratios.
Solution
- Reference Point deployed a team led by a former SVP and Division Manager at Bank of America to identify opportunities for reductions in permanent O&M (SG&A) expenses to achieve the targeted ratios.
- The team delivered Reference Point’s Performance Mining’s iterative methodology across the four business units in 11-week cycles, confidentially interviewing and surveying employees to identify opportunities for savings, quantifying potential savings opportunities in partnership with the Finance team, validating recommendations with leadership, and consolidating outputs into an implementation plan.
- Reference Point applied domain expertise and financial services industry experience to validate and quantify employee-provided insights as well as refine and select cost saving recommendations.
Impact
- As a result of the Performance Mining exercise, the Client was able to reduce annual operating expense by 16%.
- The Client also decided to centralize the priority and planning of capital spending based on Reference Point’s recommendations.
- Reference Point also worked with the new management of Centralized Planning and Control to design and implement a project office reporting directly to the CFO with uniform project management and reporting methodologies.
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