There has always been an elemental symmetry to M&A: A seller concludes that a business or asset does not fit its enterprise portfolio, and a natural buyer recognizes that the same target is a strategic match. Put simply, there’s a buyer for every seller, or so the logic goes. However, the ideal does not always meet the reality. Despite a recent increase in M&A activity across many sectors during 2024…
The industry overview M &A in the financial-services industry is recovering from the global slowdown of 2023. Monthly deal value in 2024 returned to the average monthly value of the prior five years, and total deal value for 2024 was 30 percent higher than that seen in 2023. Nine out of ten financial-service deals in 2024 were made within national borders—up from six out of ten in 2021—reflecting global economic…
The medtech sector continues to face challenges in achieving profitable growth, causing some companies to embark on bold transformations to unlock value. Value creation and potential efficiencies are difficult to capture because they are often deeply interconnected across functions, requiring an evolved operating model and cross-functional collaboration to unlock. Executing a successful transformation in medtech can catalyze change by helping companies refocus on sustainable growth, reigniting a cycle of efficiency…
Zolang we niets doen aan verdere digitalisering van de zorg, stevent de Nederlandse samenleving af op een mogelijk onwerkbare situatie: De zorgkosten stijgen ieder jaar sneller en de personeelstekorten lopen in snel tempo op. Digitale zorg kan niet alleen de zorgkosten omlaag brengen en de personeelstekorten verminderen, maar ook de kwaliteit en toegankelijkheid van de zorg verhogen. Daarbij gaat het niet om “nieuwe” innovatie: er is internationaal reeds een brede…
In response to the changing geopolitical environment, European NATO countries have increased defense budgets, a significant share of which are expected to go to new equipment. As munition stocks grow and existing equipment ages, mission readiness—the ability to deploy military assets for their intended use—is an increasingly important priority for countries. This, in turn, is likely to boost demand for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services. But it will be…
Businesses increasingly want to buy clean electricity—especially as the fast expansion of data centers powering artificial intelligence pushes technology companies’ power demands to new heights. Unchecked, these increased power demands further threaten the world’s ability to meet climate targets. Whether to meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) targets, cut costs, or hedge volatility, more companies are seeking to fully address their energy-related emissions. Companies’ voluntary purchases of clean energy have helped…
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is projected to play a significant role in the world’s energy transition, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors. Based on McKinsey Energy Solutions’ analysis, future CCS demand is anticipated to be driven by sectors such as power, hydrogen, iron and steel, cement, and refining. The conditions in these sectors that could increase demand for CCS include stranded coal assets, the need for a continuous flow of gas…
Breakthroughs in scientific research and increased public and private investments have yet to negate the long timelines and rising costs of clinical trials. Such challenges continue to drag down biopharma R&D productivity and hold back innovative therapies from making it to market. Although clinical development speed increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of pharma candidates in the pipeline, coupled with a decreasing success rate of clinical trials, has…
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 behaviors, including office attendance, residential moves from urban centers to the suburbs, and in-person versus online shopping. It then modeled what the demand for office, retail, and residential space could be by 2030 in nine major global…
New research by my colleagues at the McKinsey Global Institute shows that as the world becomes youth-scarce, the number of people of working age per senior in advanced economies and China will halve, from about four today to just two by 2050. The fact that people are living longer is good news. Economically, though, there are consequences. People 65 years and older typically consume more than they earn from their…
CEOs are confronting double the number of critical issues today compared with ten years ago. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Senior Partners Daniel Pacthod and Kurt Strovink, along with McKinsey Senior Advisor Wyman Howard, join McKinsey Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro to discuss the characteristics today’s business leaders need to handle greater and more frequent waves of disruption and how organizations can create the infrastructure and conditions to build…
In this episode of McKinsey on Building Products, McKinsey Partner Rikki Singh sits down with Arnab Bose, the chief product officer of the Okta Platform. During their conversation, Singh and Bose discuss how AI has changed the landscape of cybersecurity, how Okta innovatively protects its clients against deepfakes and phishing attempts in innovative ways, and how product management teams can work with marketing and sales teams to set ambitious goals…
The world of work is still in flux as many companies continue to follow hybrid and work-from-home models. At the same time, Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Nike moved to mandated in-office policies of at least four days a week in 2024, and more organizations, as well as much of the US federal workforce, are following suit this year. Which working model is best for…
Consumers still love to shop online, but growth in e-commerce is no longer likely to be as frenzied as it was in recent years. E-commerce sales in the United States soared to 18 percent annual growth between 2019 and 2023. Our analysis suggests that sales could now normalize at a more modest but still healthy growth rate of roughly 6 percent a year—closer to prepandemic levels. The arrival of a…
To the casual observer, 2024 may have felt like yet another difficult year for private equity (PE) globally. Fundraising remained tough—down 24 percent year over year for traditional commingled vehicles, marking the third consecutive year of decline. Investment returns were muted, especially compared with buoyant public markets. Our analysis reveals a more nuanced picture. After two years of murky conditions, private equity started to emerge from the fog in 2024.…
B2B sales leaders today stand at a crossroads. The environment they face is dynamic and challenging. Economic growth is uneven across the world, competition is evolving, and B2B customers are adopting many more consumer-like behaviors, seeking more robust buying experiences, and showing a willingness to find alternative vendors. How can B2B leaders break through in such a challenging landscape? Of course, companies still need to execute on core principles of…
The defense ecosystem today is at a critical junction, ripe with opportunity for private capital, the traditional defense industrial base (DIB), and other commercial players such as hyperscalers to take critical roles in leading disruption within the innovation pipeline. Yet the window to reorient how public and private organizations invest to meet the challenges facing Western security is limited, with the coming decade being the most critical. That’s because increasing…
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…