McKinsey & Company

Innovation and growth are inherently linked. Companies that build new businesses and develop new offerings, processes, or business models are better able to capture growth opportunities and hedge against disruption in a highly uncertain business environment. This conclusion was forcefully reinforced in our recent survey of 1,039 companies around the world. The largest share of respondents identified the ability to innovate as the most important strategic factor for generating growth over…

Core technology remains a huge challenge for the banking industry, with a majority of financial institutions still running on mainframe-based systems because switching to other options is such a monumental task. In this episode of Talking Banking Matters, McKinsey payments sector expert Roshan Varadarajan speaks with one of the entrepreneurial technologists who seek to solve this challenge, Zeta cofounder and CEO Bhavin Turakhia. Zeta offers a broad array of banking…

At a glance Quality, affordable housing is out of reach for far too many Americans. This issue touches rural and urban households, young and old, poor and middle class, and households across racial groups. Housing, and where that housing is located, matters a lot. Housing significantly determines access to employment, education, public and social services, and critical amenities that help families achieve economic mobility. The housing crisis is a national…

Following several years of economic crosscurrents and fluctuating performance, the US wealth management industry is entering 2025 from a position of strength, with solid fundamentals in place. Demand for its services continues to grow as Americans become wealthier and their needs become more complex—for example, because of greater reliance on personal savings for retirement than in prior generations and the proliferation of sophisticated financial products to maximize wealth accumulation and…

The way organizations manage their most important assets—their people—is ready for a fundamental transformation. New technologies, hybrid working practices, multigenerational workforces, heightened geopolitical risks, and other major disruptions are prompting leaders to rethink their methods for attracting, developing, and retaining employees. In the past year alone, for instance, we have seen more and more companies adopt, innovate, and invest in technology—particularly in gen AI—in ways that have spurred more changes…

Modern machines are getting harder to maintain. Extra features, multiple sensors, advanced control systems, and sophisticated software all add cost and complexity to maintenance tasks. In industrial environments, that complexity is often compounded by the coexistence of equipment from different eras, different manufacturers, and different technology types.As the work involved in maintenance becomes more demanding, maintenance functions are wrestling with other challenges. Workforce demographics are one, as older, more experienced…

Return to office (RTO) is on the rise. But in the words of talent expert and McKinsey Partner Bryan Hancock, “It doesn’t matter where you ask someone to be. What matters is what you do with them once they’re there.” On this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, Hancock and McKinsey Senior Partner Brooke Weddle speak with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about surprising soon-to-be-published research on the opportunities and challenges of RTO—and…

At 112 years young, Holcim is proving that age and innovation can go hand in hand. With headquarters in Switzerland, a presence in 70 countries worldwide, and $27 billion in net sales, the construction building materials company is using cutting-edge technology to help the customer ordering process run more smoothly. To transform what was once a manual system into something speedier and easier to use, Holcim recently began experimenting with…

Sports fans love to compare today’s athletes to the legends of the past and speculate about who’s the best. While many of us cherish our childhood memories, it’s a cold, hard fact that, in almost every case, today’s athletes would handily defeat their predecessors. As a flamethrowing relief pitcher said in 2018, if Babe Ruth, arguably one of the greatest players in major league history, were playing today, “I would…

At its core, strategy entails deriving insights from facts and data, developing real options based on those insights, making hard-to-reverse choices, and executing initiatives that convert those choices into value. Data analytics has assisted in this work for several decades, but never before has technology been able to not only augment and partially automate inputs into strategy but also combine them into complex analyses. In time, it may even recommend…

Nearly a decade ago, the Gates Foundation launched the Economic Mobility and Opportunity (EMO) strategy to help remove the barriers that prevent millions of people in poverty from moving up the economic ladder. Focused on 44 million Americans whose incomes are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (an annual income of $30,120 for an individual and $62,400 for a family of four), EMO collaborates with organizations…

When Jonathan Sudharta began his career as a pharmaceutical sales rep, he spent a lot of time in waiting rooms, observing patients who waited for hours, often in vain, to see a physician. He recognized an opportunity to address a lack of healthcare access in Indonesia and launched Halodoc in 2016, a telehealth application that connected millions of Indonesians to a network of more than 20,000 healthcare professionals, clinics, labs,…

On this page: Opportunity | Solution | Impact 0%est. reduction in time needed to build or update MACCs0Koperational data points processed with AI0Kemission data points in Catalyst Zero’s IP The Opportunity Reducing farming’s carbon footprint AGCO Corporation is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of agricultural machinery and precision ag technology. It operates manufacturing sites across Europe, Asia, South America, and the US, selling under the Fendt,…

Mercedes-Benz made only two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupés. The two-seat cars, which were manufactured in 1955, are nicknamed “The Red” and “The Blue” based on their interior colors. With long, sleek hoods and passenger doors that open from the top, the cars were designed for the racetrack and had a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour, making them far faster than their contemporaries. Ironically, the Uhlenhaut Coupés never entered…

Does this sound familiar? A company spends more than $50 million a year on cloud services with a small FinOps team dedicated to tracking expenses. This team, supported by contract labor, uses various solutions to monitor and control spending and to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. Yet cloud waste persists, from storing unnecessary data to using overly expensive services. Such situations are not unique. We looked at more than…

Asia is entering a new era that could pave the way for a meaningful expansion of its global influence. By 2040, Asia could contribute 42 percent of global GDP, be home to 60 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies, and have 55 percent of the world’s total workforce, our analysis shows. The continent could become the engine of global trade while making strides in domestic investments, R&D, innovation, and AI…

Worldwide, 2024 was a difficult year for the residential solar market. After several years of 30 percent annual growth in installations, 2024 saw a decline: fewer panels were installed in many markets, and companies’ valuations declined. This led to large capital injections, major bankruptcies, and job losses.Although these conditions might appear bleak—a delay on the path to net zero and yet another setback in an industry that has taken decades…

What happens when art meets technology, AI, and data? You get the trailblazing digital artist and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), lecturer Refik Anadol. For this episode of At the Edge, Anadol sat down with McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos. They discussed his multisensory installation about the melting glaciers and the joy that comes from bonding with technology to push…

It’s been a year and a half since McKinsey published “Empty spaces and hybrid places: The pandemic’s lasting impact on real estate.” The comprehensive report examined the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on office attendance, occupancy, and demand. It also examined related factors, including residential moves from urban centers to the suburbs (which may mean fewer visits to the office) and online versus in-person shopping (which may affect the vibrancy…

The word ‘boomtown’ was practically invented for the mining industry, which has a history of gold rush euphoria followed by equally intense busts. The pattern has continued through the past decade, with mining companies buffeted by a global pandemic, trade tensions, and geopolitical conflicts (Exhibit 1).Very few of them have been able to capitalize on the peak periods to prepare for downturns. Instead, as we noted in 2022, the mining…

Here’s the challenge facing brands and retailers: Communicate clearly with a vast array of consumers who speak thousands of languages, hail from countless different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds, and make purchasing decisions based on highly personal preferences. It’s no easy feat to reach all of these consumers on a broad scale in an authentic way. For some time now, companies have been trying to address customer needs through personalization, using…

Closing the approximately $700 billion annual nature financing gap is essential to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. Alongside the necessary governmental action, the private sector has a critical role to play in mobilizing the funding needed. To support businesses in these efforts, this road map outlines the steps to develop and implement a nature strategy and a nature finance action plan. While focusing on biodiversity credits, the considerations…

Recent volatility has added new layers of complexity to a topic that already challenges business leaders: prioritizing investments. When executives want to understand the trade-offs between different initiatives, they typically compare the projects’ net present values (NPVs)—the measure of an investment’s worth over its entire lifetime discounted to today. In theory, these analyses should balance near-term and long-term financial viability. In practice, however, that’s increasingly difficult to do because uncertain…

Making government more productive offers substantial rewards for the public. A McKinsey study across 42 countries found that if public services could reach the productivity levels of the leading performers in their peer groups, the improvement would be worth an estimated $3.5 trillion per year. Since then, governments have spent more on public services, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allowing for this increase and inflation, the productivity gap could be…

By 2040, Asia could contribute 42 percent of global GDP, be home to 60 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies, and have 55 percent of the world’s total workforce. These factors form a favorable macro backdrop for Asian companies, driving the emergence of what we call Asian global players. Asian companies are making rapid advances in areas such as digital services, fintech, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy. Their…

We have finally left 2024 behind us and are looking forward to what the new year 2025–the Year of the Snake–will bring for China consumption. Looking back at 2024, we’ve seen a steep contrast between perception and reality. Consumer and business sentiment remains at an all-time low, and there is no evidence that this will change anytime soon. At the same time, China yet again delivered 5.0 percent gross domestic…

Trade relationships are continuing to reconfigure, and changing geopolitics is a major reason. The United States has continued to shift trade away from China and toward other economies such as Mexico and Vietnam. In some cases, this is due to these economies forming an intermediate step in trade flows between China and the United States. European economies have moved away from trade with Russia and increased trade with other partners,…

With the energy transition gathering pace, businesses are prioritizing cleaner energy sources and electrification to meet decarbonization goals and reduce energy costs. They are taking a more active role in managing their energy supply with the associated services, for example, through the direct procurement of clean energy via power purchase agreements (PPAs). This is being achieved by generating and managing on-site energy as “prosumers” and optimizing equipment and installations that…

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Alexandra Mondalek chats with McKinsey senior partners Kweilin Ellingrud, Lareina Yee, and María del Mar Martínez about their new book, The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women—and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It (Harvard Business Review, March 2025). The “broken rung” is the missing step on the career ladder that keeps women from reaching their first…

Access to cash is critically important for medtech companies. Cash allows medtech leaders to acquire emerging technologies and develop their own new products, which in turn drives the kind of innovation that improves patient outcomes and boosts shareholder value. But many medtech organizations have too much of their cash tied up in excess inventory on shelves in too many locations. Typically, medtech companies hold as much as three times more…

When companies embark on transformations, they naturally focus on the big picture: how a transformation will allow them to perform better through cost-out measures or how they can implement high-impact growth strategies to become bigger, leaner, and better. In companies’ rush toward change, however, they often end up overlooking or deprioritizing the impact that improving their net working capital can have as they begin the transformation journey, potentially thwarting early…

US auto retailers have embraced multiple new technologies over the past decade, from next-generation core systems to AI and digital sales platforms. Yet, despite sometimes significant investments, dealer productivity has remained stuck in a rut, with vehicle sales per employee averaging between 14 and 16 each year. To boost technology’s impact, a new playbook is required—one that shifts the focus away from point solutions and toward collaboration and deeper tech…

For Robert Hormats, two of the biggest geopolitical stories of the past decade are the retrenchment of globalization and the rise of a multi-polar world. He is well positioned to make that judgment. Hormats has been a senior official in the administrations of five different American presidents, including most recently as the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment from 2009 to 2013. He is also…

Data powers AI solutions, but developing the capabilities to gather, structure, and deploy the right data is a daunting challenge. For the real estate industry, the task becomes a lot easier when leaders know which questions they are trying to answer. Katy McLaughlin: Let’s say a real estate leader wants to take advantage of some of the new AI tools. How do they approach working with data to get started?…

Economic uncertainty is on the rise due to widespread geopolitical changes. While global growth remains mostly stable for now, businesses and investors are closely monitoring these developments for potential disruptions to the economic landscape (Exhibit 1). With President Trump taking office in January, businesses and analysts are seeking clarity on what his second term might bring in terms of economic policies. The US Federal Reserve and other leading central banks…

Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies, published in 2024 by the World Economic Forum (the Forum) in collaboration with the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), reported that the women’s health gap correlates with women living in poor health for 25 percent more of their lives than men do. Closing the women’s health gap could yield 75 million disability-adjusted life years annually—the equivalent of…

Separations have become a widely adopted strategy for creating value, but their popularity does not mean these complex transactions are always effective. For instance, spin-offs—one of the main types of corporate separations, alongside divestitures and carveouts—have hit record numbers in recent years, but these deals are not guaranteed to create value for both the remaining and new businesses. Through our decades of research and experience supporting organizations in a range of…

With global business corridors subject to geopolitical shifts and structural realignment, Asia’s companies stand at a new crossroads—where old formulas for success are stalling, and new highways to growth are emerging. Long-established global trade and investment patterns are reconfiguring in response to geopolitical tensions, a “just in case” rather than a “just in time” mindset, and increasing sophistication in Asia’s skills and capabilities. Companies operating in Asia—local, regional, and multinational—have…

Over the past two years, interest in value chain optimization (VCO) has grown as downstream refining businesses come up against volatile market conditions, an emergence of “pure play” portfolios, and technological change. However, many organizations do not take a holistic approach when assessing their value chain; instead they look at each process in a piecemeal fashion, adding cost and inefficiency. VCO, also known in refining organizations as supply chain planning…

The world is faced with a dual imperative in the energy transition: the energy system has to be decarbonized, but much more energy is going to be needed in the future. In this episode, Janet Bush, executive editor at McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), talks to McKinsey experts Chris Bradley and Vishal Agarwal about the hurdles that need to be cleared, particularly in Asia, to achieve decarbonization.An edited transcript of the…