McKinsey & Company

Barbara Karuth-Zelle, COO and board member of Allianz, is passionate about driving technology and AI innovation for a sustainable future. She’s spent more than 20 years at the insurer—including as CEO of Allianz Technology, its internal technology service provider—and is known for her ability to assemble diverse teams that get things done quickly. Karuth-Zelle spoke with McKinsey senior partner Jörg Mußhoff about generative AI (gen AI), digital transformations, sustainability, and…

Jayne Plunkett, chief risk officer (CRO) of pan-Asian insurer AIA Group, has held leadership roles across the full spectrum of insurance products and services, including primary insurance, reinsurance, frontline underwriting, and risk management. In a conversation with Bernhard Kotanko, McKinsey senior partner and head of the firm’s Asia–Pacific insurance practice, Plunkett shared her perspectives on the role of insurance, her approach to risk management, and her personal journey as a…

Asia’s business leaders should prepare themselves for potential turbulence as global dynamics shift and challenges escalate. Over the past three decades, Asia has reaped more benefits from a globalizing world than any other region, but that landscape is becoming more contested, and risks are rising. The region’s rise to prominence could mean that it finds itself in the eye of the storm. This article was developed by McKinsey, in collaboration…

In the past decade, manufacturing in Vietnam has been at the epicenter of the country’s high growth. This sector contributed more than 20 percent to the country’s GDP and has been an anchor in Vietnam’s trade balance, helping to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). It played a significant role in the remarkable resilience that Vietnam’s economy demonstrated in the face of global upheaval, which maintained a positive GDP growth rate…

Billions of people rely on healthy oceans as a source of jobs and food, and demand for fish protein is only increasing. Projections show growth of 14 percent by 2030 versus 2020 levels, driven by growing markets in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. That said, the amount of wild-caught seafood remains flat, with more than 85 percent of the world’s fisheries pushed to or beyond their limits. This means…

The pandemic has forced major changes in how, when, and where people work. It has also bedeviled employers. Due in part to new hybrid and remote-working models, companies are struggling to find objective ways to gauge employee effectiveness—a critical challenge as labor costs have increased and worker productivity has declined. According to new McKinsey research, employee disengagement and attrition could cost a median-size S&P 500 company between $228 million and…

Across the United States, renewable energy sources are impacting natural gas generation. The growth of renewables in the grid, compounded by the increased electrification of energy demand, will expose the grid to the risks of an intermittent renewables supply to meet growing power demand. As a result, in the coming decades, a fully “dispatchable” backup energy supply will be required to ensure the reliability of the power grid for multiday…

Compared with other critical business functions such as sales or customer operations, software development is perennially undermeasured. The long-held belief by many in tech is that it’s not possible to do it correctly—and that, in any case, only trained engineers are knowledgeable enough to assess the performance of their peers. Yet that status quo is no longer sustainable. Now that most companies are becoming (to one degree or another) software…

In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, two authors of a recent article on the CEO transition discuss how incoming leaders can make the most of their first 12 months in the role. Carolyn Dewar, who co-leads McKinsey’s CEO excellence work, is a co-author of last year’s bestseller CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest. Kurt Strovink is co-leader of McKinsey’s global…

Mark van Nieuwland is the vice president of Bovaer, a methane-reducing feed additive, at Swiss-Dutch nutrition, health, and beauty company dsm-firmenich (DSM). Joshua Katz, a McKinsey partner and leader in the agriculture and private equity space, and Wilson Roen, a McKinsey consultant and sustainability fellow, talked with Mark about the development of Bovaer, how the agriculture industry can encourage further adoption among farmers, and what the world can do to…

Chuck Mattera, chair and CEO of Coherent, formerly II-VI, has spent a lifetime building businesses by harnessing breakthrough technologies. At Coherent, he has championed a strategy focused on acquisitions to achieve scale and deliver innovations in the industrial, communications, electronics, and instrumentation markets. McKinsey’s André Andonian and Abhijit Mahindroo sat down with him to discuss the lessons he has learned and his plans for the future. An edited version of…

Russia’s war in Ukraine is an ongoing tragedy, destroying lives and livelihoods in Ukraine and altering economic patterns worldwide. In May 2022, we set out an initial analysis of 12 disruptions that the war could unleash. With the passage of time, it seems increasingly likely that the war, coming so soon after a global pandemic, could presage a new economic era. We have been here before: today’s shocks are reminiscent…

When buying an electric vehicle, consumers want an experience that matches their expectations of the car itself. That is, something exciting and innovative but also reliable and predictable. They expect to both transact online and negotiate with a real person, and they still need to take a test drive. However, the overall experience needs to be more seamless, more personalized, and more flexible than it was in the days of…

How will hotel operators use new technologies, respond to travelers’ changing needs and preferences, and become more sustainable? Five leaders of McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice envision what the hotel experience might be like in the 2030s. The following transcript has been edited for clarity. Convenience and customization Caroline Tufft: The big change that I anticipate, more than anything, in hotels in the future is that every single pain…

Private capital loved software —or it did for about a decade, during which capital deployment skyrocketed. In more recent quarters, software markets have reflected global macroeconomic uncertainty. Publicly listed companies’ multiples swooned; access to debt markets tightened; and private markets continued to hold large amounts of dry powder. Developments in banking that have affected major tech-financing entities may also affect capital raises for software. Developments in banking that have affected…

After signs of improving economic sentiment in the spring, consumer spending seems to be in a summer slump. Across age and income groups, American consumers continue to spend less than they did a year prior—except on travel. Real year-over-year spending has declined for the third month in a row, while for the first time in more than two years, nominal spending growth is now negative as well. Will US consumer…

When have you been your most productive, creative, or innovative? Think back to a time when you really made yourself proud, and try to remember the environment you were working in. Maybe it’s your current job, if you have challenging work and supportive, engaged colleagues. Maybe it was at university, when you ate your meals in a dining hall and had an adviser to help figure out your course schedule.…

ZeroNorth uses data to help shipping companies become more efficient and, by extension, greener. Its interactive platform provides simulations, predictions, analysis, and data-driven insights that can aid shipping companies in their quest to traverse oceans while consuming less fuel. Founded in June 2020, the Copenhagen-based start-up now has about 200 employees in six locations around the globe. ZeroNorth says it helped prevent more than 440,000 tons of CO2 from being…

American restaurant executives are bracing for another challenging year. While some supply challenges and immediate inflationary pressures have abated, many leaders anticipate hefty annual increases in labor and input costs over the next five years. Restaurants also continue to endure pressure to meet evolving consumer demands in an increasingly competitive environment. A previous article detailed eight “ingredients” for profitable growth—areas of focus that can help restaurants succeed even during a…

Pervasive societal inequity in the United States is strikingly evident in the start-up world. In 2022, Black and Latino founders received only 1 percent and 1.5 percent respectively of total US venture capital (VC) funding. Women-founded teams received 1.9 percent of VC funds, and only 0.1 percent of VC funds went to Black and Latino women founders. It’s a gap that persists through each stage of growth. Looking at the…

It’s easy to go along to get along: give lots of managers an equal say and allot each division its “fair share” of capital. Usually, however, a laissez-faire approach underserves a corporation’s most promising opportunities for growth. Companies typically provide lump sums to division heads, often in proportion to current revenue; choices about funding get pushed across the organization and down its hierarchies, with the result that historic performance repeats…

If you shopped at a FairPrice supermarket in Singapore in early 2022, there’s a small chance that the person who was working the till was none other than FairPrice’s freshly minted group CEO, Vipul Chawla. “Unless I invest at least 100 hours doing something, I don’t have the license to have a conversation with my team, let alone make decisions,” Chawla says. During his first three months with the company,…

Challenging the perception that insurance is a low-tech industry, AIA Group has updated its offerings and processes to become more accessible to millions of customers in Asia. In this episode of the McKinsey on Insurance podcast, Biswa Misra, the group chief technology officer and life operations officer at AIA, spoke to McKinsey senior partner Anand Swaminathan about how he helped chart a course for change, the importance of strong teams…

Over the past few decades, industrial automation has evolved gradually, with few changes in market structure. But the pace of change is accelerating, thanks to technology disruptions and macro trends such as reshoring, a global skilled labor shortage, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Is the day likewise coming when software-defined manufacturing will turn shop floors into “smartphones with robotic arms”? A scenario analysis by McKinsey suggests the answer…

Even under the best of circumstances, leaders of corporate functions face enormous cost constraints. Tougher times only raise the pressure to make functions as efficient and effective as is humanly possible. What makes the job even harder is the widespread belief that efficiency and effectiveness counterbalance each other: focusing on efficiency could damage effectiveness, and vice versa. But what if a more optimistic scenario were possible, where effectiveness and efficiency…

The payments start-up Forage applies disruptive technology to the social sector, bringing digital payments to the distribution of government benefits in the United States. In this episode of Talking Banking Matters, we hear from Forage’s co-founder and CEO, Ofek Lavian, about why he chose to tackle what used to be known as “food stamps” and how he feels Forage can benefit recipients of food aid. The following edited transcript presents highlights…

As CEO of Merck, Ken Frazier gained the respect of his employees, shareholders, and the broader community not only through the company’s performance during his 11-year tenure but his handling of several tests of his leadership. Now Merck’s former executive chairman, he recently shared how his experience growing up during the Civil Rights Movement shaped his career, how he ensured that science stayed at the core of Merck’s mission, and…

Many incumbent organizations across industries and sectors want to become more like tech companies: fast, agile, and dominant. They’re doing so to remain competitive at a time when B2B and B2C customers have high and rapidly changing expectations and digital disruptors are upending the business landscape. The key to making this change lies in adopting a technology operating model based on products and platforms. This model organizes technology around user-facing…

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) supports the growth of US renewables at an unprecedented pace. Solar, storage, and onshore wind capacity could reach more than 1,240 gigawatts (GW) over the next decade, growing 2.7 times faster than projected before the IRA took effect (Exhibit 1). The IRA is expected to stimulate domestic manufacturing of modules, subcomponents, inverters, trackers, and more, which could alleviate material shortages that had…

Latin America was once considered an e-commerce laggard, full of consumers who were reluctant to buy online. No longer. The region now has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sectors in the world. The start-up Melonn (founded in Colombia in 2020 by six friends) aims to capitalize on Latin America’s booming cadre of small and medium-size B2C e-commerce companies. But one of the challenges Melonn faces is a deficit of trust:…

A energetic and tightly grouped collection of social media reaction icons including hearts, thumbs up, happy and surprised faces along with comment and texting bubbles and hashtags. You probably already know what social media is. Whether you cringe at the memory of your Myspace page from the early 2000s, keep in touch with your aunt on Facebook, or are regularly unsettled by too-relevant ads on Instagram, few of us are…

Once considered toys, shared electric kickscooters (e-kickscooters) have grown up. Expanding in number from virtually nothing in 2017 to a peak of 350 million trips among global leading players in 2022, shared e-kickscooters have caught the attention of regulators worldwide. To better understand how guidance may evolve, we identified and examined the regulatory archetypes of the top 100 cities worldwide. Regulatory review of the top 100 global cities Five years…

Generative AI: It’s powerful. It’s accessible. And it’s poised to change the way we work. On this episode of the McKinsey Talks Talent podcast, talent leaders Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger talk with McKinsey Technology Council chair Lareina Yee and global editorial director Lucia Rahilly about the promise and pitfalls of using gen AI in HR—from recruiting to performance management to chatbot-enabled professional growth. An edited version of their discussion…

  The travel app Hopper launched in 2015, with the bulk of its initial revenue coming from airline ticket sales. A few years later, the company ramped up a travel fintech business—selling consumers algorithmically enabled financial products such as price-freezing capabilities and cancellation insurance. It has since expanded those offerings and made them available to other travel companies as a B2B service. “When we started Hopper, we thought it would…

One lesson for software companies has become abundantly clear during the last 18 months: pricing needs to be on the C-suite’s agenda. Before then, the industry had been growing so fast for over a decade that executives and investors tended not to view individual product margins as an overriding concern. Now, however, that has all changed. After years of rapid growth, the industry faces economic uncertainty, increased capital costs as…

A small, picturesque village on the Mediterranean coast isn’t usually what comes to mind when we think of the typical birthplace for a global tech unicorn. But Croatia-based Infobip has grown into a global communications giant reaching more than seven billion mobile devices and “things” in more than 200 countries and generating close to $2 billion in revenue. Amid a generative AI revolution, Infobip is helping companies change how their…

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Lucia Rahilly chats with McKinsey partners Emily Field and Bryan Hancock, as well as senior partner Bill Schaninger, about their new book, Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work (Harvard Business Review Press, July 18, 2023). The authors discuss the critical impact of middle management in vision creation, coaching, and skill development, and share…

Why drive to your neighboring city or region when you can fly? Over the past 30 years or so, the standard response has been because driving is cheaper, more convenient, and probably faster door to door. That may not be true for much longer, however. Advances in aerospace technology, new attitudes about travel, and a growing ecosystem of established players and startups could drive a resurgence in regional air mobility.…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many companies have implemented flexible work patterns in pursuit of better employee experience, real estate cost savings, and more sustainable operations. However, a McKinsey survey of real estate and employee experience executives from 50 companies reveals that most firms have only scratched the surface. The survey asked how far along companies are in implementing 12 practices McKinsey has identified as key to developing effective and…

The agriculture industry is under pressure. Dramatic cost increases for inputs and labor are putting farmers’ profitability at risk. Globally, farmers report that prices for inputs such as fertilizer and crop protection chemicals have risen by 80 to 250 percent over the past few years. Climate change is also squeezing profits. A warmer climate is resulting in increased weather variability, more frequent acute weather events, longer droughts, and new invasive…