Amid rising costs and falling output, German manufacturers can unlock EUR 100 billion in material cost savings. A new report by Roland Berger explains how.
How procurement leaders can claw back costs
Rebound: A playbook for short-term recovery from inflated material costs
Across industries, procurement leaders face the same challenge: rising unit costs from recent shocks, contrasted with uncertainty in growth, demand, and budgets. In response, we propose a dual-track strategy that addresses both short-term recovery and long-term resilience. Step one is Rebound, a three-to-six-month program designed to reset baselines, restore margins, and free up resources for transformation.
Steps toward short-term recovery and long-term resilience
Our Rebound strategy can breathe life into flagging commercial value. When performed well, these measures typically deliver reductions of 5-10% in material costs across many categories and generate funds for our longer-term Prepare agenda, which covers diversification, dynamic pricing/hedging, and contractual pass-through to customers.
Whether you buy in Europe, the Americas, or Asia-Pacific, this strategy is global by design, while the examples and the tools we cite are sector-agnostic.
"Many crisis-era price increases are now hard to justify or misaligned with forward curves."
Compete, compress, and pass through
Throughout supply chains, many crisis-era price increases are now hard to justify or misaligned with forward curves for energy, materials, and logistics. At the same time, suppliers and customers have sharpened their defense and claim tactics.
Rebound is the disciplined countermove. It enables procurement organizations to compete, by re-introducing competitive pressure; compress, by removing unmerited increases and inefficiencies; and pass through, by ensuring unavoidable increases travel downstream.
Two realities set the context. Firstly, a squeeze from both sides. Tier 1 and prime suppliers face upward pressure from sub-tiers as well as resistance from OEMs and customers. Similar dynamics show up in other value chains, such as chemicals with consumer packaged goods, or components with industrial OEMs.
Secondly, claims will persist. Even as spot markets normalize, tactics will continue and claim volumes will remain elevated. Only structured, prioritized handling can mitigate against margin leakage.
How to Rebound: 10 levers for the next 90-180 days
We prioritize 10 levers in our short-term Rebound strategy, from category re-tenders to AI-assisted tail-spend cleanup. Each one can be applied over the next three to six months to help procurement managers claw back recent price increases.
- Structured contract rebasing
- Rigorous pass-through management
- Game theory-based awarding
- Rapid supplier rationalization
- AI-assisted tail-spend cleanup
- Re-tender certain categories
- Parametric should-costing as an anchor
- Value analysis/value engineering sprints
- Short-cycle energy re-contracting
- Governance for speed and consistency
Risks and mitigation strategies
Transformative commercial programs can deliver significant value, but they also carry potential risks that must be actively managed. For instance, supplier backlash can arise if processes are perceived as “auction theater”; this can be mitigated by clearly communicating rules, demonstrating genuine commitment, and inviting only qualified suppliers capable of winning.
Other challenges are also possible, such as customer resistance to pass-through management and internal drift, where decisions are revisited post-fact. Our in-depth Rebound report includes more information on these risks as well as how to mitigate them.
Rebound now to prepare for long-term change
Rising material inputs and stagnating outputs are eroding competitiveness and margins. In response, procurement must move from reactive firefighting to strategic foresight.
The Rebound agenda is designed as the funding flywheel for our multi-year Prepare transformation. By starting with a single wave, rapidly capturing cash, and systematically scaling the mechanisms, organizations can accelerate value while building momentum for longer-term initiatives.
This isn’t a radical approach. Leading organizations regularly succeed not by inventing new levers, but by applying established ones deeply, consistently, and at scale. Rather than resulting in a technology roadmap, the key output is an application matrix that measures sophistication and implementation status.
In Q4 2025, we will publish an in-depth look at our longer-term Prepare strategy, covering aspects such as supplier diversification, dynamic pricing/hedging, and contractual pass-through to customers.
For further details on each of the 10 Rebound steps, as well as how to execute a rapid 90-day Rebound sprint, download the full report below.
We would like to thank Christopher Meyer and Jascha Barsegar for co-authoring this article.
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Further readings
