Expense Reduction Analysts Analysing

Industry Solutions

Industry Specialists in Cost Management

Explore your industry below in more detail and discover ERA can help. With a global network of experienced professionals, Expense Reduction Analysts is focused on delivering Value through Insight™ to your organisation. Offering knowledge locally to your region, our experts work with your team to further enhance your business strategy, ensuring an efficient and optimised output to safeguard your financial flexibility. In an ever-changing world, no matter which sector or industry your organisation operates in, the need for adaptation and evolution is constant. As the challenges of your business environment change, so must the way you operate in order to flourish and thrive. At Expense Reduction Analysts, our global network consists of industry experts, all of whom have gained a wealth of knowledge and insight from extensive and successful careers in their fields of expertise. Anticipating your needs, our team can deliver local knowledge to your region, working with your business to provide optimised performance, reduced costs and improved financial flexibility.

Agrifood Solutions

COVID19 has of course had a big impact on the Agrifood sector. Disruptions in the supply chains of raw materials and parts, financially unstable suppliers, challenges with production planning due to increased distance between employees, new and possible complicated legislation are, of course, obstacles that the Agrifood industry meets – just like any other industry. During the crisis, however, the Agrifood Industry is less affected in the first period of time, simply because people prioritise food for obvious reasons, despite the crisis they are in. We still have to wait to see which long term changes Covid19 will bring in the Agrifood Industry. However, companies with a sharp supply chain, with updated contracts and supplier relations renewed, will be best prepared to meet the challenges ahead.

Hospitality and Leisure Solutions

The expert team behind Expense Reduction Hospitality and Leisure Solutions has decades of experience. So, if you’re a hospitality and leisure business or group of boutique hotels, a restaurant chain, a holiday park or a sports ground, maybe a theatre or other leisure attraction. Staff continue to be furloughed, you receive business rates relief, and GST has been reduced. But what of other costs to your business that are significant, or will be when your doors reopen. Surely these also demand scrutiny if you are to be as lean as possible to give yourself the best fighting chance to thrive and survive.

Digital Solutions

Keeping up with the pace of change within digital technology continues to be one of the toughest challenges facing organisations today. Digital has routinely disrupted a wide range of industries, primarily because companies fail to keep pace, particularly consumer behaviour. Understanding the impact and implications of evolving technology and ensuring your organisation is adaptable enough to respond requires highly optimised strategies at all levels of operation. Digital technologies permeate day to day business. We work with your business to envision and implement Digital Solutions that improve the way you operate. From optimising digital assets & marketing spend (e.g. email marketing, digital advertising) to the adoption of new digital technologies & best practices (e.g. blockchain, smart contracts, digitalisation-ware). Our goal is to enable your firm to dedicate more resources to the tasks that can generate profit and even finance more innovation.

Manufacturing Solutions

The COVID-19 pandemic hit manufacturers in an unexpected and unprecedented way. For the first time in modern manufacturing history, demand, supply and workforce availability are affected globally at the same time. As a result, companies are experiencing dramatic drops in demand and extreme pressure to cut operational costs. Every major manufacturer is now experiencing disruptions across their supply chains of parts and raw materials, driven by what may now become recurring volatility of supply from the Asia Pacific. Social distancing and employee safety measures put an additional level of pressure on manufacturers, as 40%-50% of their workforce will be unavailable to perform their functions on-site. While office employees and knowledge workers can shift to remote work as the default operating mode, most factories are not designed to be managed remotely. They lack the digital tools and infrastructure needed to support such activities. We hope the insights we can deliver here will get you thinking about strategy and how adding expertise can bring resilience in a challenging industry.

Professional Services Solutions

Months of Covid19 restrictions have a transformational effect on the delivery of services and prospects for legal and professional services firms. Firms have experienced an extreme “forced change” to working from home, huge reliance on technology and a step-change from paper-based processing systems. It’s likely that few, if any, of these new abnormal characteristics will be reversed in any meaningful sense. Consequently, there are huge implications for the extent and use of office floor space in future and whether the accommodation and direct employment of support services personnel inexpensive premises will ever return.

Retail Solutions

The evolving COVID-19 situation is complex so a considered and well managed response by retailers will have a major bearing on how well they ride the waves. Retailers should see this an opportunity to out-perform their less agile competitors and build the foundations of a more digital, nimble business for the future. In many countries retail is already a troubled sector, with declining consumer demand and the threat from online and discount models. When Covid-19 hit it essentially split the retail sector into winners and losers. While areas such as food retail thrived, non-essential retail all but ceased. The question for retailers is whether they can flexibly respond to these different challenges in an agile way, adapting their operations and commercial decision making rapidly to reflect the new day-to-day reality. For food retailers, can they manage the increase in demand? Will their supply chains prove resilient? Will others adapt and adopt new technology to thrive in the ‘new normal’? One thing is for certain, the old theory of building more and more stores when sales do start to improve is likely to change significantly. The new high street, already much different from how it looked 20 years ago, is going to change drastically again in the next few years. But the retailers that adapt and continue to bring value to the consumer will thrive. While it’s early days, I’m already seeing signs that some of those retailers have a rosy future.

Financial Services Solutions

Many organisations across Financial Services have demonstrated a flexible and resilient response to this crisis. Business leaders have been forced to manage the movement of entire support functions to work from home, redefine processes, realign focus and reprioritise workloads to allow their people to work safely, with the tools they need to support customers. In the immediate term, these positive actions need to be refined and embedded across the organisation, to not only survive but to thrive in the future landscape. The difficulties experienced in growing revenue streams in this environment are becoming increasingly evident, thus businesses are having to concentrate on a long-term focus to reduce costs. This is not surprising given the significant overheads of financial institutions, but it is not easy to identify the areas that can be targeted to drive efficiency without compromising client engagement or regulatory compliance.

Education Solutions

Colleges, Universities and MATs are under increasing pressure to achieve budget reduction whilst operating with a lack of funding. In addition, private schools in Australia are facing a different battle for survival in the face of the coronavirus crisis as parents who have lost their income cancel direct debits, and overseas pupils who have gone home may decide not to return. The education sector across Europe must review their overhead costs; a release of funds could make a huge difference and help meet the additional costs that will hit hard.

Trade & Wholesale Solutions

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Trade & Wholesale sector in unexpected and unprecedented ways. The impact has caused serious disruptions in global supply chains, influencing product availability and increased delivery times.

However, the pandemic has also created opportunities for the sector. In the short term, we have seen businesses reduce stocks to lower inventory investment, supply chain disruptions have highlighted vulnerabilities. Supply management is changing to remain responsive, creating opportunities for service providers to widen supply options and increase inventory to buffer demand.

Healthcare Solutions

Within ERA Healthcare solutions, we are providing support to hospitals and care homes. We have experienced first-hand the challenges they were facing and will continue to face soon.

Hospitals had to completely restructure their operations to prioritise Covid patients and stop non-essential, sometimes very lucrative, activities. In addition, they had to procure protective equipment at very high prices and buy new machines (e.g. breathing equipment). This was combined with lots of overtime work from highly dedicated employees. However, those high activity levels did not offset all the losses in non-essential activities or the additional costs,