Practical perspectives on costs, contracts and efficiency

Cost Management Barometer 2026

Original title: Cost Management Barometer – 2026 Outlook

ERA Group's Cost Management Barometer 2026 is an annual survey report on how senior decision-makers approach cost management for the year ahead. According to its own methodology section, the report is based on a survey of 1,000 senior decision-makers — primarily CEOs, CFOs, COOs and operational leaders — across a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, retail and healthcare. The research was conducted in Q1 2026.

Cost Management Barometer 2026 – Retail Edition

This is ERA Group's sector edition for retail. It is built from the retail portion of the Cost Management Barometer 2026: according to its own methodology, the edition isolates the responses of 330 retail leaders from a dataset of 1,000 senior decision-makers. The research was conducted in Q1 2026 with particular emphasis on EMEA.

Cost Management Barometer 2026 – Manufacturing Edition

This is the sector edition of ERA Group's Cost Management Barometer 2026. According to its methodology, it draws on the same dataset as the main report — 1,000 senior decision-makers — while isolating the responses of a sub-set of 339 manufacturing leaders. The research was conducted in Q1 2026 with particular emphasis on EMEA.

Creating a CFO/CPO Strategic Partnership

The paper argues that Finance and Procurement should operate as one team rather than two parallel tracks. Procurement sits closest to market developments and operational cost drivers, and the report makes the case for building that knowledge into financial target setting and planning.

Five Procurement Priorities for 2026

Original title: The ERA Leadership Series – CPO Edition: Five Procurement Priorities for 2026

Part of ERA Group's leadership series, this edition is written for chief procurement officers. The premise is that procurement's remit keeps expanding: protect margin, de-risk supply, move faster and deliver measurable sustainability — while AI, tariffs and tighter capital rewrite the rules.

The Strategic Power of Procurement

ERA Group's thought leadership article argues that procurement is no longer a cost-control function but a strategic enabler of business value. The reasoning follows six dimensions: strategic influence, risk management, digital transformation, sustainability, talent development and future-readiness.

Creating a Culture of Cost Optimization

The paper is about embedding cost optimisation into strategic planning rather than treating it as an isolated savings exercise. Its starting point is that change is a constant, and that organisations need a sustainable way to fund their larger initiatives.

Unlocking Hidden Value

Original title: Unlocking Hidden Value: How Supplier Cost Optimization Gives You the Competitive Edge

ERA Group's article starts from a reality many leadership teams recognise: margins that were manageable a couple of years ago are now under pressure from several directions at once. Wage inflation, raw material prices, energy, freight, warehousing, insurance and technology costs are all climbing, and tariff and trade policy uncertainty adds further risk to the supply chain.

Becoming Best in Class

Original title: Becoming Best in Class: How to Maintain Savings Over Time

The paper deals with how a saving is maintained over time. Its premise is that supplier contracts are normally written with the supplier's interests in mind, so it pays to understand where in the agreement the supplier actually makes its margin — through non-contract items, accessorial charges or termination clauses, for example.

Cost Intelligence in Action – Manufacturing

Original title: Cost Intelligence in Action – Manufacturing: How CFOs combine Cost Intelligence and Tail Spend discipline to fuel growth

ERA Group's whitepaper describes a situation common in manufacturing: finance teams are surrounded by data from ERP, accounts payable, purchasing platforms and plant-level spreadsheets, yet traditional reporting mainly shows what was spent and with whom — not where the real opportunities sit, or how to sequence action across plants, categories and suppliers.

Sustainable Reindustrialization

Original title: Sustainable Reindustrialization – Cost Optimization as a Pillar of European Industrial Sovereignty

ERA Group's article examines how European industry can strengthen competitiveness as production becomes more resilient and less dependent on long, exposed supply chains. According to the report, industry's share of Europe's GDP declined from 20% in 2000 to approximately 15% in 2024, which it links to a weaker capacity to absorb disruption.

The Cost of Instability – EMEA

Original title: The Cost of Instability: How global volatility is reshaping costs across every sector – EMEA

ERA Group's report describes how global instability no longer stays in macroeconomics but arrives directly in the cost base: freight surcharges, packaging increases, supplier letters announcing blanket increases, longer lead times, tighter capacity and insurance renewals. The challenge is not simply that costs rise, but that they move faster, appear with less warning and are harder to validate.

AI for CFOs

Original title: A new era of AI for CFOs

The paper's basic position is that AI should not primarily be seen as a cost-cutting tool, but as a way to expand an organisation's analytical and decision-making capacity. It describes how automation, data availability and falling technology costs have made AI accessible to organisations of all sizes.

Rethinking Supply Chains

The paper covers digitalisation and AI in the supply chain of the freight forwarding, industrial and commercial sectors. Its starting point is that many companies still run on outdated systems or self-built spreadsheets, and therefore miss the advantages a modern Transport Management System (TMS) can provide.

How to Save on Software

Original title: How to Save on Software – 3 Key Takeaways to Act on Now!

The paper explains why software has become one of the hardest external cost categories to control. Even smaller organisations end up managing a large number of vendors, applications and licences, typically accumulated over time and without a consolidated view.

Future of Packaging

Original title: Future of Packaging: Strategies for Economy and Environment

ERA Group's whitepaper starts from the fact that costs for both wood-based and synthetic packaging have fluctuated heavily in recent years, and that packaging affects cost, environmental impact and customer satisfaction across the logistics chain. It covers six areas of packaging optimisation: professional packaging management, cost optimisation, material and design optimisation, size optimisation, sustainability and process optimisation.

Sustainable Procurement

Original title: Sustainable Procurement: Meeting your ESG targets through optimization

ERA Group's guide presents sustainable procurement as a practical route to ESG targets that also reduces cost. The premise is that most of a company's environmental impact sits outside its own operations: in most cases over 80% of the carbon footprint is scope 3, with more than 40% inside the supply chain.