Client Challenge – Cut $100 million in operating costs without reducing headcount.
Collaborative Breakthrough – Reducing costs is painful and is usually accomplished by cutting people. Compaq’s management wanted to drive out costs without losing valuable human resources. The breakthroughs in this program came from CRI’s cadre of External Collaborators, from seemingly unrelated industries; in this case the airline and automotive. Stories about how significant amounts of money were saved in those non-competing companies helped the Compaq team identify analogous sources of cost containment in their world.
For example: CRI’s External Collaborator from the automotive industry shared his experience with his company’s significant reduction in the costs related to window washer fluid caps. His story told how his company reduced its design, production and inventory costs for window-washer fluid caps from 32 different models to only 2, which saved them a surprising amount of money. The Compaq team made an analogy between window washer fluid caps and computer feet; those little rubber bumps on the bottom of desktop and laptop computers. The resulting reduction in costs related to computer feet saved Compaq over $12 million. A story about paint from the airline Collaborator created another analogy around the painting of computers. It resulted in savings of over $17 million
Reality – Over $100 million in potential sources of cost savings were identified, of which $87 million were implemented without eliminating one employee.
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