The current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 with the 2024/25 tax year kicking off a day later. With the end of the tax year approaching, it’s a good idea to begin to plan what you need to do to ensure your taxes are in good shape. Peter Webb, our Head of Tax Advisory, shares his top tips. Before considering what you might need to do before 6 April…
In 2023, global beauty market retail sales grew to $446 billion, up 10 percent from 2022. In the year since the release of our inaugural state of beauty report, published in collaboration with The Business of Fashion in May 2023, the industry—comprising fragrance, makeup, skin care, and hair care—beat expectations and outperformed other consumer sectors, such as apparel. But these headline growth figures only tell part of the story. While…
Anuj Shrestha The Research The authors first studied openly accessible documents concerning the COVAX initiative to understand the organization’s functions, vaccine procurement process, and allocation framework. They then conducted semi-structured interviews online with representatives of COVAX stakeholders, including pharma companies, public health organizations, NGOs, and grant-making organizations. Informants were selected to mirror the diversity of stakeholder perspectives. Their media analysis used the Factiva database to better understand the timing of…
Engage students with interactive Hispanic Heritage Month lessons that highlight the rich heritage and impactful leadership of Hispanic figures. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in the US from September 15 to October 15 each year, Microsoft is committed to honoring and amplifying the voices and contributions of the Hispanic and Latinx community. Through innovative tools like Minecraft Education and the power of AI with Microsoft Copilot, you have a…
For decades, the Business Roundtable, a professional association and lobbying organization formed by CEOs from many of the largest companies in the United States, asserted that companies exist to create value for shareholders. So, it was noteworthy when, in 2019, the leaders of 181 companies signed onto the organization’s revised “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” that committed to creating value for all stakeholders. Recently, leaders of the Yale…
Enterprises are looking to Global capability centers (GCCs) as critical innovation hubs to stay ahead in the competitive landscape, but the difficulty lies in aligning strategic priorities with the capabilities of GCCs to maximize their impact. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Operations, host Daphne Luchtenberg is joined by McKinsey partners Abhilash Sridharan and Malcolm Gomes, Debasis Panda of TransUnion, and Pravin Goel of BlackRock to discuss how GCCs are evolving…
The business transformations that generative AI brings come with risks that AI itself can help secure in a kind of flywheel of progress. Companies who were quick to embrace the open internet more than 20 years ago were among the first to reap its benefits and become proficient in modern network security. Enterprise AI is following a similar pattern today. Organizations pursuing its advances — especially with powerful generative AI…
The tools we now have to identify trends and shifts in such data are allowing us to develop crucial insights into the effects that human activity is having, and will have, on the natural world. Professor Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade If companies continue to file patents for products made from animals banned from commercial trade, such as rhinos, this can suggest a…
As many of you already know, and for those CEOs of small public companies that do not know, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating the convertible toxic note industry for a few years and has recently filed several high profile enforcement actions against several of these “lenders” for violations of certain federal securities laws, particularly failure to register as a “dealer”, as is required by…
The Four Guardrails That Enable Agility Nick van der Meulen Key Insight: Defining constraints can help large companies foster employee autonomy and agility while maintaining organizational and strategic alignment. Top Takeaways: Organizational agility requires that employees be empowered to make fast decisions, take risks, and consider new ideas, but companies also need a certain level of coordination to reach their strategic goals. Creating an environment in which employees are empowered…
Understanding dilution is crucial for founders, particularly as they seek investment and scale their businesses. When high-growth companies attract investor capital, some level of dilution is expected. So here are five essential points every founder should know about dilution. 1. Definition and Impact What is Dilution: Dilution occurs when a company issues new shares, thereby reducing the ownership percentage of existing shareholders. Impact on Ownership: As more shares are issued,…
The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on the website as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and openness around the use of animals in research.This coincides with the publication of the Home Office’s report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2023. The ten organisations carried out 1,435,009 procedures, 54% (over half) of the 2,681,686 procedures carried out on animals for scientific research in Great Britain…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Sometimes external conditions exert a much larger force than usual. That is certainly the case today, with political and environmental change, economic uncertainty, regional conflicts, and population displacement happening around the world. As I write this, it’s just a few…
On September 4, 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law an amendment to New York’s warranty reimbursement statute, N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 465, requiring manufacturers to compensate dealers for labor using the “reasonable” time allowances contained in third-party labor time guides “reasonably utilized” by dealers for customer-pay repairs. In so doing, New York is the second state to adopt such a statutory provision this year and joins…
Quick Hits A recent decision from the NLRB found that consent orders undermine the NLRB general counsel’s prosecutorial authority and fail to facilitate a mutual resolution of labor disputes. For now, the NLRB will no longer accept consent orders, which are settlement terms unilaterally proposed by a respondent (typically an employer) without the consent of the general counsel or the charging party. Moving forward, only bilateral settlement agreements may be…
Together with Oracle, we’re announcing upgrades to Oracle Database@Azure, giving customers the ability to run or build new cloud applications that combine Oracle Database services with native Microsoft Azure services and benefit from extremely low latency and high performance. This blog is co-authored by Kambiz Aghili, Vice President, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Multicloud, Oracle. One year ago, Microsoft and Oracle built upon our multi-year partnership by announcing a first of its kind…
AI can help you become a better writer, coder, and researcher. But can the powerful technology boost business acumen and economic performance?Sort of, says a recent study. An experimental artificial intelligence (AI) mentor designed to answer business questions from Kenyan entrepreneurs helped some become more successful—but led others down the wrong path, says Rembrand Koning, the Mary V. and Mark A. Stevens Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business…
A decision driven by pragmatic considerations… The problems afflicting Jakarta include overpopulation, pollution, subsidence and flooding. With 12 million people living there – 30 million if you include the entire metropolitan area – Jakarta is overpopulated. It’s one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with more than 16,000 people per square kilometre. Its residents suffer the effects of chronic traffic congestion and the air pollution that goes with it. Above…
Joan Tabachnick ’86 has worked in the field of child sexual abuse prevention for more than 30 years and developed widely used educational tools and programs. She serves on the advisory council of Stop It Now, and recently retired as the executive director of MASOC—the Massachusetts Society for a World Free of Sexual Harm by Youth. Q: What do people need to understand about child sexual abuse? For many years,…
Radar Research finds that companies have been slow to adopt generative AI and that the technology’s labor impacts have not been widely felt. Kaushik Viswanath September 09, 2024 Reading Time: 2 min Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management from the opening pages of MIT Sloan Management Review’s quarterly print magazine. More in this series Getty Images Since the…
Quick Hits The right to switch off would give workers the right to not have to engage with work correspondence (including emails, phone calls, and work-based messaging services) outside their contracted working hours. This right is intended to give “workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties.” How will the right to “switch off” operate?…
With stricter domestic violence laws being introduced, a common question being asked is whether financial abuse is a crime. While this has previously been seen in the context of family law proceedings, the introduction of coercive control as a criminal offence has expanded the consequences of financial abuse. This is because control of finances is specifically set out in legislation as a facet of coercive control. A further consequence of…
On September 9, the Valdai Discussion Club presented the report “Neither East, Nor West: How Iran’s Economy Copes With Sanctions”. The discussion was moderated by Ivan Timofeev, the Club’s programme director, who noted that Iran remains one of the key cases for those studying the use of sanctions, and that Iran’s experience is extremely important for Russia. Timofeev emphasised that, while this experience cannot be copied literally, it requires careful,…
Topics Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management from the opening pages of MIT Sloan Management Review’s quarterly print magazine. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Courtesy of Mathematica Akira Bell is senior vice president and CIO at Mathematica, a research and data analytics consultancy. Bell was a finalist for this year’s MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award in recognition of her work at Mathematica to spearhead the launch…
It was a brief dalliance, just a few weeks in length, over text and video only.The end of the affair was nonetheless just the beginning for Stephen Easterbrook, the McDonald’s CEO who went from being hailed as the company’s “savior” by doubling its share price in less than five years to losing his job and getting banned from serving as an executive or director at any other company for five…
With climate change increasing seasonal temperatures and causing more frequent heatwaves, understanding these effects has become more crucial than ever. Hormones play a role in nearly all biological functions, yet the influence of environmental factors on hormone release and action is not well characterised. Researchers from the University of Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London, and…
According to McKinsey analysis, between 2023 and 2030, ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) and high-net-worth (HNW) families in the Asia–Pacific region are set to experience an intergenerational wealth transfer estimated at $5.8 trillion. UHNW families are expected to account for about 60 percent of the total wealth transfer (Exhibit 1), and many are setting up family offices to facilitate the process. Accordingly, the number of single-family offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, the…
In the current business landscape, artificial intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities for innovation and growth. Our experts answer the most common questions when it comes to developing an AI strategy to gain a competitive advantage. This article covers key considerations, potential risks and best practices for integrating AI into your business. Should every company have an AI strategy? Absolutely. Every company needs an AI strategy, not just as a tech initiative,…
One thing we’ve learned about AI at work: if you want to see true business transformation, you need to get a critical mass of your organization using the technology every day. And that means encouraging dozens, hundreds, thousands of people to build entirely new habits, which can be a start-and-stop process. “Sure, you’ll always have early adopters,” says Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of AI at Work. “But they’re…
Seeing what’s going on inside a body is never easy. While technologies like CT scans, X-rays, MRIs, and microscopy can provide insights, the images are rarely completely clear and can come with side effects like radiation exposure. But what if you could apply a substance on the skin, much like a moisturizing cream, and make it transparent, without harming the tissue? That’s what Stanford scientists have done using an FDA-approved…
We’re starting to roll out AI Studio in the US as a place for people to create, share and discover AIs. Built with Llama 3.1, AI Studio lets anyone create and discover AI characters and allows creators to build an AI as an extension of themselves to reach more fans. Create an AI Character Based on Your Interests With AI Studio, anyone can create AI characters at ai.meta.com/ai-studio or in…
Quantum computation is a rapidly maturing technology with significant disruptive potential. Over the last 4 years alone, the record number of stable qubits has grown by a factor of nearly 18×, with quantum computers used to demonstrate proof-of-concepts in finance, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing – among other sectors. If this growth in capability continues, quantum computing may provide a step-change in computational capability, with the potential to fundamentally change the way…
Segmentation – identifying which image pixels belong to an object – helps with tasks like analyzing scientific imagery or editing photos. Our original Segment Anything Model released last year inspired new AI-enabled image editing tools in our apps, such as Backdrop and Cutouts on Instagram. SAM has also catalyzed diverse applications in science, medicine and numerous other industries. For example, SAM has been used in marine science to segment sonar…
The HR function plays an important—if often unrecognized—role in M&A. When it comes to bringing together separate businesses, structures, and cultures, “people make all the difference,” says Lisa Blair Davis, the global head of HR for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) MedTech. Davis has seen and helped drive substantial growth in the healthcare company’s medical-device business in her 25-plus years with J&J. During that time, the organization has acquired companies in…
Seyfarth Synopsis: Minnesota joins the growing number of states to adopt statewide legislation requiring employers to disclose starting salary ranges and other forms of compensation and benefits in postings for open positions. The law becomes effective January 1, 2025 and applies to employers with 30 or more employees within the state. Beginning January 1, 2025, Minnesota employers are required to include the starting salary range and a general description of…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. Writing in the journal Public Opinion 1951, Yale researchers Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss labeled their postwar studies on the trick of persuasive messaging regardless of the truth as “the sleeper effect.” They found that a message lingers through repetition, even if factually unfounded. Now just days away from the historic debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Harris…
Lasting performance improvements that establish a competitive advantage: What organization doesn’t want that? For a company undergoing transformation, cultivating employee “will” to change the way it operates is critical for success. Organizations that focus on generating this will, along with building critical skills, executing with rigor, and setting a holistic aspiration, are far more likely to outperform peers. Leaders can take three critical steps to get more employees involved and…
How bad is housing affordability in the U.S.? Is it actually a crisis? There are many ways to define housing affordability, but common indicators point to much higher costs of both owning and renting than what we have seen since pre-COVID times. Average home prices grew more than twice as fast as average incomes between 2020 and 2023. This is an historically unprecedented rise in the U.S. home price-to-income ratio.…
On 14 April 2024, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited published conclusions to its consultation on the enhancement of climate-related disclosures under its environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) framework. With effect from 1 January 2025, a new set of rules mandating climate-related disclosures (the “New Requirements”) will be added to the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the “Listing Rules”). The…
Quick Hits On September 4, 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the New York Retail Worker Safety Act, a comprehensive measure intended to increase worker safety and address the hazard of workplace violence in retail settings. The act, which applies to retail employers with at least ten employees and requires, among other things, assessments of potential workplace violence hazards, adoption of written workplace violence prevention policies, and workplace violence…