Costing & Cost Optimization Manager /Senior Management Cost Accountant

Company: Private Limited Company TPA / Healthcare Service

Experience: 1015 years
Qualification: Cost Accountant / MBA Finance candidates with strong costing and financial analysis experience

Reporting To: Managing Director

About the Role

We are looking for a highly analytical and commercially oriented Costing & Cost Optimization professional including MIS & Budgeting who can independently analyze the Company's costs, identify unnecessary expenditure, recommend cost-saving measures.

The role will cover the Company's operations, various business verticals, corporate expenses and promoter-related expenses incurred through the Company as well as expenses maintained in private books, for management analysis.

The primary responsibility is to establish appropriate cost benchmarks and continuously identify opportunities to reduce costs without adversely affecting business operations or regulatory/service requirements.

Key Responsibilities

1. Costing & MIS

• Independently analyse the Company's cost structure on a monthly basis.
• Prepare detailed business-wise, department-wise, location-wise and activity-wise costing.
• Analyse fixed costs, variable costs, manpower costs, technology costs, vendor costs, administrative costs and other operating expenses.
• Identify cost overruns and investigate the reasons for deviations from budget.
• Develop appropriate cost-per-transaction / cost-per-claim / cost-per-employee / cost-per-service metrics for TPA operations.
• Analyse profitability and contribution margins of different business segments, clients and projects.
• Identify loss-making clients/contracts/business activities and recommend corrective action.
• Prepare management dashboards showing Budget vs Actual vs Previous Period vs Target.

2. Promoter / Management Expense Analysis

• Analyse expenses incurred through the Company which relate to promoters/management and provide clear classification and reporting.
• Review expenses maintained in private books for management-level cost analysis wherever required.
• Prepare consolidated management analysis of relevant Company and private expenses with comparison with Budget and Actual.
• Identify avoidable expenditure and opportunities for better allocation/control.
• Establish appropriate approval and documentation mechanisms for management/promoter-related expenses.
• Prepare management dashboards showing Budget vs Actual vs Previous Period with reason for Increase in Cost compared to Budget.

3. Budgeting & MIS

• Assist management in preparing annual operating budgets.
• Establish cost budgets for departments and business verticals.
• Conduct monthly budget variance analysis.
• Highlight significant adverse variances with reasons and corrective action.
• Develop rolling forecasts for major expense categories.

Candidate Profile

• 10–15 years of relevant experience in costing, management accounting, financial analysis, cost control, FP&A, business finance or cost optimization.
• Cost Account who handles above work will be preferred.
• Strong experience in cost analysis and cost reduction is more important than routine accounting experience.
• Experience in a service industry, healthcare, insurance, TPA, BPO, technology or transaction-processing business will be an advantage.
• Strong Excel skills are essential.
• Experience with Power BI / MIS / financial modelling will be an advantage.
• Must be commercially minded and capable of challenging unnecessary expenditure.
• Should have strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Should be comfortable interacting with senior management and business heads.

Most Important Requirement

The candidate should have the mindset:

“Don't just report the cost – find out why it is being incurred, determine whether it is necessary, identify how it can be reduced, implement the solution and prove the saving.”

The successful candidate will be measured substantially on actual cost reduction, improved productivity and measurable financial savings, and not merely on preparation of MIS reports.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Actual annual cost savings achieved.
• Percentage reduction in controllable operating costs.
• Reduction in cost per transaction/claim.
• Budget adherence.
• Reduction in recurring unnecessary expenses.
• Improvement in manpower productivity.
• Vendor cost reduction.
• Implementation rate of approved cost-saving initiatives.
• Accuracy of costing and profitability analysis.
• Timeliness and quality of management MIS.
• ROI achieved from automation/process improvement initiatives.

Candidates who have demonstrated significant cost reduction / turnaround / profitability improvement in their previous organizations will be given preference.