Smart strategies for improving cost control, efficiency and sustainable growth

February 04, 2025

As you fine-tune and execute your strategies for 2025 and beyond, chances are your wish list is topped by goals around growing your business and launching innovations to keep up with your customers’ expectations, whether their money is at rest, in motion or at work. But cost pressures keep bearing down on your business, keeping budgets tight.

Labor costs have spiralled while inflation and interest rates remain stubbornly high. Disruptors keep invading your customer base while cybercriminals and fraudsters take aim every day. The cost of complying with changing regulatory requirements is consuming profits.

With so many cost factors usurping your bottom line, it is hard to make the case for funding initiatives, even ones that could accelerate growth and set you apart. As a result, your attention is diverted from your growth and innovation wish list, replaced by the relentless pursuit of cost reductions.

Cost cutting – It’s not a goal in itself

For many businesses, the top-down message has been unrelenting: spend less. With that singular directive, a counterproductive mentality can take hold; that is, everything that cuts costs is good, and anything that adds costs is bad. The risk here is that by spending less, you’re going to do less and therefore accomplish less.

The key is to invest wisely in the technologies, processes and people that introduce new efficiencies. It is no secret that automated systems can perform the work of multiple employees, eliminating the need to pay people for performing repetitive tasks, as well as costly do-overs when errors occur. Investing in straight-through processing, for example, means fewer people touch fewer tasks, and that translates into lower costs.

A shift to cloud computing may enable you to eliminate hardware and software costs, streamline business processes and pay only for the services you use.

While that sounds like a strictly technology-oriented move, don’t overlook the fact that it will have human ramifications. Loyal employees who have cut their teeth on operating your legacy systems will require retraining, which represents opportunity for those who wish to take advantage of it.

Big cost savers – AI, data analytics and digitalization

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and data analytics perform routine tasks and digest huge volumes of data in a fraction of the time compared to people utilizing manual processes. But the AI story has rapidly evolved beyond number crunching. All the while it is permeating every facet of our everyday personal lives, businesses are benefiting from its ability to deliver new insights.

According to the 2024 FIS® Global Innovation Report, more than half (56%) of the C-level respondents use AI to better understand customer preferences and (41%) to predict market trends.¹ The technology is also being applied to improve accuracy, enhance customer interactions, train staff and so much more – all uses that factor into efficiency, thus cost savings.

Digitalization also plays a crucial role in cost control, with smart investments offering you the chance to minimize repetitive tasks and eliminate the high cost of generating, handling and storing paper. Better yet, it gives your customers what they’ve been asking for: self-service capabilities that let them take care of own needs without your intervention.

The price tag to adopt these technologies may feel beyond reach, especially when you’re in cost-cutting mode.

The 2024 FIS Global Innovation Research indicates that 75% of C-level executives who have invested in these types of cost reduction technologies find them to be highly impactful.¹

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These executives recognize that sometimes you must increase cost in one area to reduce costs in another.

How big companies can use AI to drive business efficiency

There’s never been a more important time to manage and assess risks and boost efficiencies in your business, says Seamus Smith, EVP & Group President, Global Automated Finance, FIS

Increasing the value of your workforce

When entertaining the idea of introducing automation to replace mundane manual tasks, it is key to consider that automation isn’t a replacement for human intelligence, it is an extension of it. Machines can process large amounts of data and identify patterns, but they can’t replace human intuition and creative decision-making. They can provide data-driven insights, but they can’t weigh moral implications or make value-based judgments.

By relieving valued employees from repetitive tasks, you liberate them to focus on higher-level endeavors. Maybe the person that prepares monthly spreadsheet reports can step into a position that analyzes AI-generated reports and makes informed recommendations to move the business forward. Or perhaps AI and machine learning tools can manage repetitive customer care tasks, allowing your team to hone their skills in creative problem resolution and proactive cross-selling. The result: highly engaged employees and greater customer satisfaction.

A closer look at what you’re doing

In recent years, a growing number of companies undergoing large-scale organizational change have hired chief transformation officers to help them adapt to disruptive market forces and drive growth. These high-level executives are charged with orchestrating change, aligning with strategic goals, managing resistance and coordinating cross-functional teams.

This trend signals the fact that many companies are reassessing their overall operating model, including people, process tools, technology, policies and procedures. The lesson is to take a hard look at how you do what you do, and how you may be able to remove friction and do it better. It may be that your inefficient payment processes are driving up costs or that you’re relying too heavily on paper as work moves through your operation, both places where modern technologies bring dramatic efficiencies.

Part of this is determining if you’re clinging to activities that no longer align with your mission. If they don’t differentiate you or add customer value, maybe it is time to discontinue that practice. Then you can take the next step and reinvest that savings into areas that fuel top-line growth: your talent, your branding and your marketing.

Start small and partner up

As you look around your operation, you can probably spot several areas where modernization could boost efficiency and cut costs. Outsourcing certain functions offers big advantages, most important of which is access to the latest technologies, including digitalization, AI and data analytics. In fact, more than half of respondents to the 2024 FIS Global Innovation Research cited security operations (58%), data protection and privacy (56%), and risk management (56%) as top areas where managed services enhance regulatory compliance.¹

Managed services may also deliver savings on hardware and labor, help the elimination of costly downtime, and potentially provide greater scalability and stronger defenses against risk than you can achieve on your own. Aligning yourself with a strong technology partner can help you identify the areas that have the most impact in the shortest amount of time. It may be the area with the most complexity, one that is holding you back the most or driving up your costs.

The right partner will go far beyond implementing technology; they’ll also help you drive process change and embrace the learning cycles as you go so you’re well equipped for future modernization initiatives.

Technology, processes and people

Cost pressures will remain, but that doesn’t have to stop you from transforming your business into an innovative, growth-oriented contender. Start by isolating the processes that are the least efficient and the most labor-intensive. Once you’ve determined your greatest pain points, consider the technologies that can automate those processes while delivering other benefits in terms of staff utilization and customer satisfaction. Finally, don’t go it alone. Find a partner with the experience to guide you through the modernization and help you develop your vision for future growth.

¹FIS, Global Innovation Research 2024 surveyed 2,000 firms across financial services and other industries in the U.S., U.K., Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.