The busier an organization becomes, the more likely money is slipping through the cracks. Those cracks are often found in overlooked contracts, auto-renewing subscriptions, and legacy supplier relationships that no one has revisited in years. As operational complexity increases, attention shifts toward immediate demands, allowing small inefficiencies to multiply quietly across the balance sheet.
“Finding money is not a side project,” says John Joseph Carpenter, National Practice Partner at the global consultancy firm ERA Group. “The money’s already there, and if you wait until you have extra time, you’ll be waiting forever.”
For Carpenter, financial efficiency is a strategic act of leadership that recognizes how easily value erodes when spending decisions go unquestioned. It is about leadership, discipline, and the willingness to examine what a business is already spending with the same rigor it applies to growth.
A Leadership Issue Disguised as a Time Problem
When margins tighten, leaders push harder on revenue while expenses are left to autopilot, leading to quiet financial leakage. “Most businesses are operating in survival mode,” he says. “They’re focused on getting through the week, the month, the quarter. Very few are designing the next 12 to 24 months in a deliberate way.”
That short-term focus creates a blind spot. Expenses that have not been reviewed in years continue to roll forward, often with incremental price increases layered on top. Over time, those decisions compound. “Almost every business has spend going out the door that they’re not getting value for,” Carpenter says. “Overspend compounds with time just like savings does.”
The solution starts at the top. Cost discipline has to be treated as a leadership responsibility, not an administrative task. When leaders signal that reclaiming wasted spend matters, organizations begin to see expense management as part of their core operating culture.
Lessons From Public Service
Carpenter’s professional path has included IT consulting, aviation, over-the-counter drug sales, and three terms as a mayor in New Jersey. Today, his advisory work centers on helping organizations take a disciplined, methodical look at their cost structures and supplier relationships, often uncovering value where leaders assumed little room remained. It was in local government, however, that he saw firsthand how deeply ingrained assumptions about spending could be challenged.
“There’s this idea that you can either cut taxes or deliver better service, but not both,” he says. “What I learned is that it was really just a choice. We agreed we couldn’t spend more money than we had. Beyond that, we were free to decide what mattered.”The result was a municipality that paid off its debt, delivered stronger services, and, most importantly, built a culture of accountability that has endured for more than a decade.
Turning Expense Reviews Into a Habit
One of Carpenter’s most practical recommendations is to encourage leaders to schedule a weekly, 60-minute “money leak audit.” The exercise entails reviewing six months of spend across two to five major non-payroll categories, such as logistics, IT, facilities, or merchant fees, and ask a single question: when was this last competitively reviewed?
“If a category hasn’t been reviewed in two or three years, that’s where the savings usually are,” Carpenter says. “Markets move. Pricing changes. Ten% to twenty% savings is often sitting there simply because no one has looked.”
Many organizations underestimate the problem, only to discover dozens of vendors in a single category or invoices that no one fully owns. “I always say businesses are tipping their suppliers,” he adds. “They’re paying ten% or fifteen% more than the bill without realizing it.”
Making Cost Reduction Pay Like Growth
Carpenter urges leaders to rethink how they view expenses altogether. One effective approach is vendor consolidation. Reducing the number of suppliers in a category not only improves pricing through volume, it also cuts transaction costs and operational complexity. “You turn an expense into a cash register,” he says. “It’s about squeezing the excess out of spend that’s already there.”
The financial impact can be dramatic, especially when viewed through the lens of valuation. Cost savings flow directly to the bottom line. “Savings are 100% efficient in growing EBITDA,” Carpenter explains. “If your business trades at a five-times multiple, saving one million dollars increases enterprise value by five million dollars.”
To sustain those gains, Carpenter advocates for what he calls a “no new spend” discipline. Every renewal, subscription, or new vendor request should be justified with a concise value case. The practice quickly exposes redundancy and unused tools, reinforcing the idea that spending deserves as much scrutiny as investment.
Financial analysis of the future
While technology and AI are reshaping financial analysis, Carpenter remains clear-eyed about their limits. Tools can surface data, but judgment still matters. “What we do is almost never just about price,” he says. “Value is often intangible. Service levels, trust, relationships. Those are human factors.”
Ultimately, the message is less about cutting costs than about reclaiming control. Financial efficiency is not a one-time initiative. It is a long-term discipline that compounds in either direction. Leaders who ignore it pay an invisible tax. Those who embrace it create resilience and optionality for the future.
Follow John Joseph Carpenter on LinkedIn or visit his website for more insights.
