I hope that you have enjoyed the article “Cost Reduction Ideas (Beyond Sourcing) ” with its four cost reduction ideas and it’s accompanying podcast that includes an additional three cost reduction ideas. All of these cost reduction ideas were geared towards situations where switching suppliers is not practical or a suboptimal alternative.

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Because of the potentially knee-jerk “let’s switch suppliers” approach to cost reduction, I wanted to highlight the alternatives to sourcing. And like so much of what I teach, it’s not so much knowing the tactics, it’s moreso applying the right tactic in the right situation.

To help you understand which situation to apply which tactic, I’ve prepared the following 2×2 matrix. The tactics covered in “Cost Reduction Ideas (Beyond Sourcing)” fall into the “Collaborate” quadrant.