The Thrift Brigade

From raw material to salaries, from advertising to fuel burn, a clutch of disparate companies is cutting costs to stay competitive and weather the slowdown.

These Ten Companies were among the standouts in cost control.

How...??

$ Pantaloon Retail - will save Rs 125 Cr by creating One Back-End Entity for Marketing, Hr, and IT.

$ By re-negotiating a 20-4-% cut in rentals at 50 outlets, Vishal Retail has cut its rental bills from Rs 8.5 Cr to Rs 6.5 Cr.

$ Tata Chemicals is Reviewing Every Item of costs across geographies, manufacturing, supply chains and overheads.

$ ICICI Bank cut its marketing spend from Rs 416 Cr to Rs 103 Cr by Reducing Reliance On DSAS and cutting back on promotion.

$ Its leadership established, Dish TV slashed its Above-The-Line spending by 30% and upped Below-The-Line promotion.

$ The Ashok Leyland top management has taken a voluntary salary cut, lowering wages by 20%.

$ Jet Airways plans to phase out its pool of 250 odd expat pilots, who charge 30-40% more, from its base of 1,350 pilots

$ By buying coal in the spot market, Tata Steel managed savings of $16.4 million.

$ Spice Jet pays oil companies and airport operators on-time to get discounts in return.

$ The offline-online ad mix of INFO EDGE has changed from 93:7 in 2003-04 to 29:71 in 2008-09.