The pressure is real, and so is the risk
Cost optimisation tops CFOs' priorities for 2026, alongside better forecasting and funding growth, according to a Gartner survey (August 2025). In the Kingdom, consulting demand has shifted from strategy towards implementation and restructuring (AGBI, July 2026).
Done badly, restructuring cuts the wrong roles, loses knowledge that was never written down and slows the services clients notice first. The saving appears in one budget line and the cost reappears in three others.
Six principles that hold
1. Start from strategy and services, not the organisation chart: decide what the organisation must do well, then design around it.
2. Cut work before people: remove duplicated steps, reports nobody reads and approvals that add no control; spans and layers follow.
3. Protect the capabilities growth depends on: data, digital and the few experts who hold critical knowledge. Gartner's CFO research shows leaders cutting costs while still funding growth (August 2025).
4. Stay within the rules: Saudi labour law, Nitaqat targets and fair treatment, with your legal advisers involved in every people decision.
5. Sequence and communicate: a clear story, dates that hold and leaders who explain the change in person.
6. Measure what matters: savings verified against an agreed baseline, and service levels tracked so that savings do not come from worse service.
Where to start
A short diagnostic answers three questions before any announcement: where the cost really sits, which changes save money without harming service, and what the new structure must protect.
Where to start: Restructuring & Turnaround