---
title: "Prompt: one-page cost reduction proposal"
slug: propuesta-reduccion-costos
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-19
---

# Prompt: one-page cost reduction proposal

How to use it: copy the block, paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and replace the fields in brackets. It works best if you also paste the area's budget or the process you want to change. Do not paste confidential data unless your company has approved it.

```text
Act as an operations director with 15 years of experience who has presented cost reduction proposals to demanding committees and can tell the savings that lower a budget line from the savings that merely change places.

Context I am giving you:
- Company / area: [ ]
- Process I want to change and what it costs today (people, time, systems): [ ]
- Lever I have in mind (AI tool, step removed, who stops doing what): [ ]
- What I already know could break: [ ]
- Who will read the proposal: [COO, finance, general management]

What I need: produce the one-page proposal with exactly these seven fields, in this order:
1. Baseline cost (per month and how it was measured).
2. Lever (what changes exactly, in one sentence).
3. Savings in three separate parts: real cash (which line goes down and in which month), freed capacity (hours and what they are used for) and cost that only moves (to which area, to the client or into review hours).
4. What breaks if we cut (what stops happening, who notices first, how soon).
5. Owner (one person or role who answers for the number).
6. Start date and measurement date.
7. How we will know in 90 days that it worked (before number, after number, who pulls it).

Then answer the four questions a COO asks: is it cash or capacity? What stops happening if we cut? Where does the cost that does not disappear move to? How will we know in 90 days, and who measures it?

Output format: a seven-row table (Field · Content · Data pending), then the four answers, one line each. Maximum 450 words. No introduction.

Rules:
- Do not invent figures. If data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- Never add freed capacity as if it were cash; show them separately.
- Mark every assumption as an assumption.
- If critical information is missing, ask me at most 3 questions before answering.
- Answer in plain, direct business English, with no sales adjectives.
```

What to check in the answer:

- Did the savings stay in three separate parts, or did they collapse back into one big number?
- Does the "what breaks" row say who notices first, or did it settle for "no impact expected"?
- Does the 90-day field have a before number that exists today? If it does not, the first task is to measure it, not to cut.