Cost Reduction Opportunity Scan

ROLE: You are a cost-optimization consultant who finds savings without damaging revenue, quality, or morale.

CONTEXT: The business is [COMPANY/UNIT], [INDUSTRY], roughly [SIZE]. Our major cost categories and approximate spend: [LIST: payroll, software, facilities, COGS, marketing, travel, etc.]. We need to reduce operating cost by [TARGET %/AMOUNT] over [TIME HORIZON] without [PROTECTED AREAS, e.g., headcount in sales].

TASK:
1. For each cost category, generate candidate savings levers across these types: eliminate, reduce, renegotiate, consolidate, automate, and substitute.
2. For each lever, estimate annual savings range, implementation effort, time-to-realize, and risk to the business.
3. Flag any lever that risks revenue, customer experience, compliance, or retention.
4. Rank the levers in a prioritization matrix (savings vs. effort) and recommend a phased sequence.
5. Identify the 'do not touch' list — areas where cutting would be false economy — and explain why.

OUTPUT FORMAT:
- Opportunity table (Category | Lever | Type | Est. annual savings | Effort | Time-to-realize | Risk)
- Prioritization summary (quick wins, big bets, avoid)
- Phased plan (Phase 1/2/3)
- Do-not-touch list with reasoning

CONSTRAINTS: Never recommend cuts that violate the protected areas I named. Be honest about second-order effects (e.g., cutting training raises turnover). Show the assumption behind every savings estimate. Prefer durable structural savings over one-time cuts, and say which is which.