Why Cost Reduction Programs Fail: What the 14% Do Differently

Most cost programs don’t fail because of bad strategy. They fail because nobody runs the plan every week once the announcement is made. Deloitte’s 2026 Enterprise Cost Transformation Survey shows this at the largest scale. It’s even more true in a mid-sized company, where nobody has follow-through as their only job.

Deloitte surveyed 500 C-suite executives at organizations with more than $5 billion in revenue. These companies have transformation offices, restructuring reserves and outside advisors on retainer. Even so:

• 96% are pursuing a cost transformation right now, and 59% are targeting a reduction of 10% or more.
• 67% expect to hit their targets.
• 14% actually achieved their primary cost reduction goal last year.
• 24% account for value leakage, the savings that disappear between the plan and the result.

Deloitte summed it up in six words: “Strategy is clear, but speed is not.” (more…)

Listen: Business Growth Spotlight, Episode 249, on Apple Podcasts

Most strategies don’t fail on paper. They fail in strategy execution. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk talks with Jim Gitney, founder and CEO of Group50® Consulting. They discuss why about 80% of businesses never realize the benefits of their own strategy, why companies stall right when they should accelerate, and how AI is changing what it takes to keep a strategy alive. (more…)

A Group50 Consulting Perspective on Building Agile, Profitable, and Customer-Centric Supply Chains

Companies face unprecedented challenges in balancing customer demand, inventory investment, manufacturing capacity, supplier performance, and profitability. Organizations that fail to align these moving parts often experience stockouts, excess inventory, missed shipments, declining margins, and frustrated customers.

The solution is not more spreadsheets, additional meetings, or simply purchasing new technology.

The solution is a disciplined Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning (SIOP) process that aligns strategy, demand, supply, inventory, capacity, and financial performance into a single operating plan. According to Group50^® Consulting, SIOP is one of the most important business processes a manufacturing or distribution company can implement because it transforms strategic objectives into executable operational plans. (more…)

Most CEOs invest significant time and money developing strong strategies — only to watch them fail during execution. Harvard Business Review and multiple studies show that 67% to 90% of strategies fail due to poor execution, not flawed ideas. The real problem is the massive gap between planning and doing. (more…)

Group50 Consulting has set a strategic direction to make AI our core consulting platform. The following article explains why ALL professional service providers should do the same and how we will use AI for all of our client projects.

During my 50-year career (more…)