Advice On Reducing Corporate Costs Without Cutting People

by tamarawilhite

posted on 09/21/2009

1. Reduce travel to only that which is necessary. No corporate retreats, sales presentations that have a low likelihood of creating sales, and customer visits merely to build up relationships.
2. Set up remote meetings wherever possible, and expand your definition of possible.
3. Replace corporate paid life insurance with a company discount, which is optional for employees who choose to buy life insurance through the company group.
4. Reduce the number of gadgets, from computers to cell phones to Blackberries. This reduces communications costs, equipment costs, and monthly bills for services.
5. Downgrade gadgets. Replace Blackberries with smart phones or phones with pagers. Lower capability gadgets have cheaper telecommunication plans, as well as less loss to the company if they are lost or damaged.
6. Reduce the number of software licenses. If users are not using the software, uninstall it. If they don't use it often, consider shared computers or floating license counts. Then renegotiate the software license agreements with the vendors.
7. Reduce hardware system count. This reduces maintenance costs and electrical costs, if not equipment leasing costs as well.
8. Tighten meeting durations to a laser focus to free up more productive work time. This will reduce overtime costs if handled correctly.
9. Reduce or eliminate paid volunteer time by staff. However, this needs to be coordinated with previously agreed commitments to avoid causing negative press for the company.
10. Institute use it or lose it paid time off, so that this cost does not carry over onto the books for the next year. To be fair, though, give staff opportunity to use the paid time off or morale will suffer.
11. Skip the paid for pizza lunches and replace them with two hours paid time in which staff can leave early for the top performers. This can save on food costs while still motivating employees.

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