Driving down cost - Andrew Wileman

Drawing on over 25 years consultancy experience running over 50 big one-time, cost-reduction projects internationally, Wileman provides a Cost Management Toolkit of key ideas and cost management strategies for analysing cost-management including procurement and management accounts and looks at how the leadership team needs to take the lead and set the tone on cost.

He lays out a set of ideas, approaches, tips and tricks that have worked for him and looks at the sneaky ways cost can be created and the even sneakier, smart ways they can be cut - like getting your customers to do your work for you, or turning cost into revenue.

Packed with real-life, international case studies and practical techniques for implementing cost reduction programmes in a period of chaos in the markets and worldwide recession, this new edition could not be more timely.

Andrew Wileman, a Harvard MBA, is an international consultant who worked for Booz Allen & Hamilton in London and New York, Boston Consulting Group and OC &C Strategy Consultants where he is a senior partner. He has been CFO of two technology businesses, is the author of Retail Power Play and is a regular columnist on Management Today. www.andrewwileman.com

A timely look at cost-cutting in a downturn. Cost-cutting may be an unglamorous subject for a business author. But it is an undeniably timely one. Andrew Wileman has produced a practical and readable book, shot through with appealing empathy for struggling firms. Managers of smaller firms who cannot afford consultants and don t have time to peruse management journals should find Mr Wileman's book especially useful. Nuggets of advice come thick and fast, covering customers, suppliers and staff. Mr Wileman's prose brims with useful tips; dry business theory is handled lightly; personal anecdotes are actually amusing; and each chapter closes with a summary presented in bullet points.
Economist.com

Mr Wileman's text is irrepressible: jaunty, energetic and all-knowing. The author knows his subject. He has been cutting swaths through flabby balance sheets and cost structures for three decades. Although he is evangelical about managing costs, Mr Wileman remains realistic. He is neither vandal nor sadist. Clients will be grateful for his distinctive blend of candour and can-do.
The Financial Times - Stefan Stern

It's time to get tough and no-one's more ruthless at the job than consultant Andrew Wileman ... this modern Dark Knight shares his axe-honing tips for managing the human side of business.
Management Today