Use case · C49
Reduce a marketing budget by 10%
How can €60k be removed without breaking the strongest contributions?
Direct answer
Start with uncommitted and weakly evidenced spend, then protect the capacity and dependencies that support expected outcomes.
01Remove, renegotiate, rephase or protect each budget line.
02The rule, the evidence and the next review date stay visible.
How to use this
Move from the question to the deliverable.
How can €60k be removed without breaking the strongest contributions?
Remove, renegotiate, rephase or protect each budget line.
Costed selective-cut case
Worked example · SQ-52
Remove €60k while protecting 94.5% of the pipeline
A limited reduction starts with spending that is uncommitted, redundant or weakly evidenced, before touching structuring capacity.
Illustrative costed case: annual budget of €600k, pipeline target of €6.2m and a request to reduce to €540k.
- 01Freeze
Keep the conventions for contribution, full cost and capacity.
- 02Sort
Rank the lines by commitment, evidence, dependency and reversibility.
- 03Cut
Remove the uncommitted first, without breaking a shared prerequisite.
- 04Reconcile
Recalculate results, workload, risks and timing after each cut.
Selective 10% cut
The four decisions remove €60k and €340k of expected pipeline, a 5.5% fall in results for 10% of the budget.
Protection rate = result after cut ÷ initial result| Line | Initial budget | Decision | Saving | Pipeline forgone | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regional event | €65k | Reduce format | €25k | €120k | Weak evidence |
| Production agency | €72k | Renegotiate scope | €12k | €40k | Duplicate packages |
| Generic media | €110k | Remove weak segments | €15k | €150k | CAC above threshold |
| Temporary tools | €28k | Consolidate licences | €8k | €30k | Duplicate functions |
| Revised portfolio | €600k | Budget at €540k | €60k | €340k | Pipeline €5.86m |
01The portfolio protects 94.5% of expected pipeline with 90% of the budget.
02No cut touches Marketing ops, because that capacity conditions several initiatives.
03Monitoring covers the pipeline given up and the dependencies, not only the saving achieved.
Fictitious case. Contribution is not a guaranteed forecast and must be recalculated when initiatives interact.
Coherence controls
Minimum conditions before validation.
The status, the evidence and the owner must be available for review.
The status, the evidence and the owner must be available for review.
The status, the evidence and the owner must be available for review.
The status, the evidence and the owner must be available for review.
Usable deliverable
Costed selective-cut case
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