McKinsey & Company

The time has come to reconsider the principles that guide operating model redesign. In some ways, these principles have seemed timeless. For decades, leaders have aimed to integrate people, structures, and processes as seamlessly as possible to deliver value and improve organizational health. But now these rules must evolve to address the current pace of change and disruption. These days, how to organize for value is an even trickier undertaking.…

Many organizations use public cloud technology to reduce costs and improve business agility, innovation, and resilience. Gen AI is adding even more value to the estimated $3 trillion in EBITDA value from cloud by 2030. However, many organizations are still working to fully realize the benefits of cloud transformations. In many cases, simply transferring existing models (such as waterfall and ticket-based plan-build-run infrastructure) to the cloud can result in limited…

Healthcare organizations’ mission is to help people manage their health, but it’s not an easy goal, given the diversity of patient needs and the complexity of how providers, payers, and healthcare services and technology firms work together. What do healthcare organizations need to do? In the latest episode of the McKinsey on Healthcare podcast, McKinsey Senior Partner Patrick Finn, global leader of the Healthcare Practice, discusses how organizations can stand…

With US states creating a variety of insurance rules and regulations, such as those around parental and sick leave, the resulting fragmentation has created significant complexity for some companies. Companies must balance the needs for great customer experiences with advanced compliance and security practices. In this interview, McKinsey partner Ann Carver, co-convener of McKinsey’s Women in Tech conference, talks with Polly Nicholas, chief experience officer (CXO) at Unum, a leading…

A significant shift has risen in the B2B technology and telecommunications landscape, where telecom operators find themselves at a strategic inflection point. Having historically held a competitive edge, operators today are faced with increased customer expectations to expand beyond their core connectivity offerings. According to McKinsey’s latest Global Technology and Telecommunications B2B Pulse Survey, nearly 80 percent of B2B customers affirm that telcos have a “right-to-play” beyond traditional connectivity. Yet,…

Today, healthcare leaders in many countries are navigating an era of accelerating complexity, defined by financial pressures, shifting demographics, and evolving consumer expectations and care delivery models. To meet this moment, CEOs will need to guide their organizations through a period of reinvention and reimagination—in service of achieving both mission and margin.Physicians may be well suited to answer this call, bringing with them a desire to improve patient care and…

Employers are the largest purchasers of health insurance in the United States, representing approximately 165 million lives and more than $800 billion in healthcare expenditures. Large employers—those with more than 10,000 employees—are often innovators when it comes to benefit offerings, shaping the trends that are later adopted by small and medium-size employers. Every year, large employers submit about 300 requests for proposal (RFPs) to health insurance carriers, according to our…

Student housing on and near college campuses in the United States is a difficult asset class to master. For students (and their families), housing needs to be high-quality yet affordable. For universities, it needs to enable great student experiences and educational outcomes. And for private providers, it needs to be at or near full occupancy and profitable. It’s easy to assume that the needs of these stakeholders are largely independent,…

AI is fast transforming work as we’ve known it—and the latest data on jobs doesn’t always reflect the changes underway. “One word sums it up best: ‘uncertainty,’” says Svenja Gudell, chief economist of global employment platform Indeed. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, Svenja joins McKinsey talent leaders Brooke Weddle and Bryan Hancock, along with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly, to help leaders make sense of the current collision of labor…

At a glance Amid pressure on US–China trade, firms may look to rearrange sourcing to alternative suppliers. If they cannot, firms might instead reduce purchases, replace imported products with something similar, or ramp up domestic production. These alternatives require a combination of sacrifice, resources, know-how, and time. We introduce a “rearrangement ratio” to quantify how hard the change might be. Thirty-five percent of US imports from China have a ratio…

This interview is part of the Leading Asia series, which features in-depth conversations with some of the region’s most value-creating leaders on what it takes to realize bold ambitions and take them further.In this Leading Asia interview, McKinsey’s Gautam Kumra talks to Mukesh Ambani about what it takes to lead in Asia. They discuss how Ambani’s focus on vision and unique leadership style has brought Reliance Industries from a small…

The years since 2020 have been a time of upheaval for consumers and companies alike, and packaging players are no exception. A global pandemic shifted consumption patterns, many countries went through a period of high inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty continues to reshape trade flows—sometimes profoundly. How have these factors affected the choices consumers make and especially their attitudes and sentiments toward packaging? To answer this question, in the first quarter…

A conceptual depiction of a blue vehicle traversing a lengthy, curving pathway in a spiral form. The backdrop is a uniform, pale blue hue. Running out of gas while you’re driving is a major inconvenience. It can leave you stranded, sometimes miles away from the nearest service station. It can take hours of your day to reach your destination. And depending on where your vehicle has stopped, it can put…

Most executives know that they need to communicate early and often with long-term intrinsic investors. Compared with, for instance, mechanical investors and traders, intrinsic investors are paying closer attention to companies’ performance metrics, potential to create value over the long term, and strategic decisions—and making their investment decisions accordingly. Long-term intrinsic investors are also the ones most likely to champion a company’s prospects in the market, influencing other investor segments…

The innovation challenge: Good ideas are harder to find Innovation has been the driver of the extraordinary progress from which humankind has benefited for a couple of centuries, but it faces a largely hidden threat: Innovation is becoming harder and more expensive. Innovation is an enabler of human progress It’s instructive here to take the long view. For most of recorded human history, improvements in human welfare from generation to…

Technology has emerged as a critical priority for businesses, not just for IT. As a result, tech leaders’ responsibilities are expanding into areas outside IT, including customer experience, innovation, operations, procurement, and strategy. But how well CIOs and other tech leaders can forge effective relationships with leaders outside the tech function has become as important as the technology decisions themselves. It’s never just tech. In this interview, Nancy Avila, current…

India is on a strong growth trajectory, with its share of global GDP rising from 1.9 percent in 2008 to 3.4 percent in 2023. The Government of India is now targeting an 8 to 10 percent share of global GDP by 2040. Achieving this level of growth requires a shift from incremental progress to targeted breakthroughs in sectors that hold the potential for significant growth and dynamism—what the McKinsey Global…

Leading a public department or agency is famously difficult, and it’s only getting harder. In a McKinsey survey of over 800 senior public sector leaders worldwide, we identified the trends that are most likely to disrupt delivery of government missions—from tighter budgets to tougher competition for talent to technological change (see sidebar, “About the research”). The good news is that many leaders are rising to these challenges and navigating the…

At a glance The global trade system is in flux. Since 2017, economies have traded less with geopolitically distant partners. Recent announcements on tariffs, trade, and industrial policy have deepened uncertainty. Trade will grow by $12 trillion by 2035 in a baseline scenario. The trade increase would boost today’s global trade value by about 35 percent, to $45 trillion. In a diversification scenario (in which companies seek new sources of…

Imagine the weekly meeting of a company’s executive team. The chief marketing officer (CMO) reports that all marketing metrics are on the rise. Brand awareness and web traffic are strong due to the latest ad campaign, which is loved by consumers and the press alike. Everyone is feeling good—until later in the meeting, when the CFO shares the latest financial results. Sales and market share are declining, and last quarter’s…

Choosing where to invest and seek funding are among the most fundamental decisions business leaders make. Recent geopolitical shifts are complicating the analysis, however. Across the globe, governments are increasingly regulating investment flows into and out of their territories and industries. While countries have long applied constraints on inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) to advance their economic and national security interests, the use of investment laws has increased significantly and…

The 2025 edition of the Aerospace Industries Association’s (AIA) annual aerospace and defense (A&D) workforce study was written as part of an ongoing collaboration with McKinsey that included a survey of AIA member companies and their executive leaders. The survey revealed that persistent core talent shortages and high attrition rates threaten to limit future progress of the A&D industry, which continues to grow at a robust 4.8 percent year over year. A&D…

At a glance Nearly eight in ten companies report using gen AI—yet just as many report no significant bottom-line impact. Think of it as the “gen AI paradox.” At the heart of this paradox is an imbalance between “horizontal” (enterprise-wide) copilots and chatbots—which have scaled quickly but deliver diffuse, hard-to-measure gains—and more transformative “vertical” (function-specific) use cases—about 90 percent of which remain stuck in pilot mode. AI agents offer a…

Back in 1959, our former colleague Gil Clee cowrote an article in Harvard Business Review that urged CEOs to embrace the challenge of creating “world enterprises.” Given the rapid expansion of international trade taking place at that time, the article advised CEOs “to view [their] responsibility as global in scope … and to organize [their] corporation in such a way that its major decisions are considered and made in the…

Just under a year before what is now the Carrier Global Corporation was to complete its spin-off from United Technologies, David Gitlin was elevated to the position of president and CEO of Carrier. And in the final months before that spin-off was completed, the world shut down in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a challenging start to a new CEO’s tenure by any measure, despite Gitlin’s previous…

Today, Jeniffer Ramnath spearheads innovation in her role as chief digital and information officer at the Mastercard Foundation (the Foundation), which works to advance education and financial inclusion for young people in Africa. However, she hasn’t forgotten her humble beginnings as a call center agent in a bustling, unfamiliar Gauteng, South Africa’s most populous province—nor what it takes to break through in an industry that often privileges men over women.…

In this interview, Horace Tiggs IV, a partner in McKinsey’s Detroit office, speaks with W. David Tarver, president and founder of the Urban Entrepreneurship Initiative (UEI), about spurring innovation and entrepreneurship within urban communities, how that drives economic mobility, and the challenges it faces today. They also discuss the importance of connecting entrepreneurs to ecosystems that lead to new solutions and scale. This transcript has been edited for clarity and…

In an era when digital experiences are closely tied to customer loyalty and financial success, credit unions stand at a crossroads. In a 2024 article, we spotlighted the growing chasm between credit unions and their competitors, a gulf that’s particularly noticeable among younger generations. Despite credit unions’ inherent advantages over banks, such as stronger member relationships and community ties, they are losing ground in the digital space.Furthermore, changing demographics spell…

Let’s look at the next chapter of AI—agentic AI, and how it could unlock the next generation of operational excellence and productivity in service operations. We dig into the high stakes of continued investment in digital transformation and the potential payoffs. We discuss collaborations between the chief information officer (CIO) and COO, and how thoughtful talent strategies can set organizations up for continued digital success.In this episode of McKinsey Talks…

Although the momentum has slowed in recent years, a large share of leading companies around the world have set bold decarbonization targets, and in the coming years, many will need to tackle the Scope 3 emissions linked to the materials embedded in their products. This article, which focuses on glass—particularly the flat glass industry—is part of a series of articles on how materials industries can decarbonize and increase circularity, offering…

Across the copper value chain, companies are setting ambitious targets to reach carbon neutrality in the next decade. This push for decarbonization coincides with increasing demand for copper—driven by the metal’s significance in future-facing applications such as batteries, renewable energy, and electricity transmission and distribution—as well as restricted supply. In fact, the world is expected to face a refined-copper shortfall of about 3.6 million metric tons (Mt) by 2035, according…

In today’s volatile environment, transformation at scale is more critical than ever for leaders looking to achieve a lasting performance advantage. Our research shows that one way to gain and sustain that advantage is to upgrade the procurement function. We analyzed thousands of companies’ transformation results across more than 340,000 transformation initiatives, which collectively represent more than $200 billion in value (see sidebar, “Scope of analysis”). We find that procurement…

The $450 billion global beauty industry, a darling of the consumer goods market, has been white hot, but is the industry’s momentum finally cooling? For years, a seemingly insatiable appetite for newness in beauty fueled robust volume and even greater pricing growth, with the sector growing 7 percent annually from 2022 to 2024. Now, geopolitical and economic uncertainty, market saturation, and evolving consumer preferences threaten that progress, requiring industry leaders…

Plastics production accounts for about 3 percent of humanity’s global carbon emissions footprint. In addition, about 1.0 billion to 1.2 billion metric tons of fossil CO2 is bound up in plastic per year and may be released at the end of that plastic’s life if not treated in a circular way or buried, according to McKinsey analysis. Plastics are used in almost every industry, in products as simple as plastic…

Imagine two financial institutions. The first manages its loan origination process through a patchwork of task-level automation and predictive models. It uses historical credit scores, rigid underwriting rules, and batch processing to move applications through a series of sequential steps. While some parts of the process have been digitized, many decisions still require human intervention—whether due to exception handling, regulatory compliance checks, or risk flagging. This results in slower decision-making,…

Senior housing is designed for people to live in as they age and may be located within communities that provide catering and social activities, as well as medical care. But even in the most developed markets, only 5 percent of seniors move in. How can the senior-housing industry help support aging societies while expanding successful businesses? McKinsey’s Sam O’Gorman explains to McKinsey Global Publishing’s Katy McLaughlin how operators can address fears…

The post-2020 era has been one of enormous upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly changed consumer behavior and preferences, and uncertainty and disruption have continued to be major features of the global economy ever since. For example, the United States has been through a period of comparatively high inflation, there is global geopolitical uncertainty, and many countries have been roiled by the energy crisis and volatile financial markets. The result, as…

Executives view innovation as their companies’ primary source of competitive advantage for delivering growth. However, in many sectors, that belief doesn’t align with companies’ spending on innovation or the returns they get on those investments, the latest McKinsey Global Survey on innovation finds. During times of economic volatility, business leaders tend to focus on short-term profitability, often putting longer-term projects designed to spur growth on the back burner. Yet as our…

The United Kingdom is home to one of the largest capital markets in the world and provides liquidity to a range of national and multinational companies. It continues to serve as a hub for export services as well as technology and business process innovation, with a flourishing private capital market. Yet negative narratives about the dynamics of UK capital markets persist, with a consensus that UK companies are undervalued compared with…

The global quality-of-life (QoL) market is expanding beyond its traditional roots in health and life sciences to become a strategic priority for all sectors, including real estate, technology, and consumer-facing industries. Executives prioritizing QoL estimate that related offerings could represent 9 to 15 percent of annual sector revenues over the next decade, potentially amounting to $6.7 trillion to $11.2 trillion in market growth by 2034. What’s more, investment in QoL-related…