For fifteen months I worked in risk consulting at PwC India, on engagements worth ₹12 Cr+ for 10+ clients including Cars24, Stryker India and PIF. The work delivered ₹6+ Cr in annual client cost savings, ₹2 Cr+ of it from reengineering 25+ processes across procurement, HR and finance. Alongside it I spent nine months on a business transformation at MCCS Infra, a construction company, where a manpower restructuring saved another ₹2 Cr.
These are the places I learned to look, and how to size what turns up.
Start from how the work actually flows
Most companies have documented processes, and many of those documents describe a version of the work that nobody follows. Cost and delay sit in the gap between the two. So the first step in any diagnostic is to walk the real process. Follow a purchase order, a hiring request or an invoice from the first request to the last approval, and write down every hand-off and every wait. Read the policy afterwards.
Decision rights are the cheapest fix
The fastest saving is usually in who is allowed to approve what. When every purchase above a small amount needs a senior signature, work queues up behind the busiest people in the company. Projects wait, suppliers wait, and people start routing around the rules, which creates a control problem on top of the delay.
At PwC I designed delegation of authority matrices and approval workflows for CXOs, and decision turnaround fell by 30%+. A delegation of authority matrix is a table that sets, for each type of decision and each amount, who can approve it and who has to be informed. It is dull to build and among the cheapest changes a company can make, because it costs nothing except agreement.
Procurement
Procurement leaks are well known and still everywhere. The usual places to look are purchases made outside negotiated contracts, the same item bought from several vendors at different prices, contracts that renew without anyone checking the price against the market, and payment terms that give away working capital for no discount. None of these shows up as one large number, which is why they last.
People cost, and hiring in a hurry
In a people heavy business the org chart is the cost structure. At MCCS Infra, hiring happened when a project landed, so the company paid a premium for speed it rarely got. We treated manpower as capacity planning, matching headcount to the actual project pipeline, and redesigned the hiring system before filling any more roles. Hiring turnaround fell 80%, cost per hire halved and the restructuring saved ₹2 Cr.
Where to look, and the first number to pull
| Where it leaks | How it shows up | The first number to pull |
|---|---|---|
| Approvals | Work waiting on senior sign-off | Median days from request to approval |
| Procurement | The same items bought at different prices | Share of spend outside negotiated contracts |
| Contracts | Renewals nobody reviews | Share of spend on contracts not repriced in a year |
| Hiring | Roles filled in a rush | Time to hire and cost per hire |
| Capacity | People idle between projects | Billable or productive hours against paid hours |
| Undocumented process | Rework and exceptions | Share of transactions handled outside the standard path |
Size every finding
A finding without a number attached does not get prioritised, and it does not get funded. Every observation in a diagnostic should carry an estimate of what it costs each year, even a rough one, with the working shown so the client's finance team can check it.
Sizing also sets the order of work. Through opportunity assessments I prioritised 8+ initiatives, which won ₹80L in additional business. With a number on every option, the options could be compared directly.
Getting a recommendation approved
Savings only happen once someone senior agrees to the change. I ran structured leadership reporting and business reviews on my engagements, and secured CXO buy-in on 20+ recommendations. A recommendation that arrives with its number, an owner and a first step is easier to approve, because the conversation can move straight to when to start.
Before cutting any cost, ask who pays for the saving, which is the define step of my Push and Absorb framework. A cut that shifts cost onto suppliers or staff tends to come back later as higher prices or attrition.
The other half of my PwC work was an internal audit AI tool, written up in AI in internal audit.
