Quantum computing has long been technology’s white whale. But in recent months, new developments suggest practical applications for this elusive technology could finally be within reach. “Quantum has been five to ten years away from fruition for many, many decades,” says McKinsey Partner Michael Bogobowicz. “Now it feels three to five years away.” In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, Bogobowicz joins McKinsey Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to discuss…
Is the US federal government as productive as it could be? It’s been a near-constant question for the past 50 years. The government’s role and workforce expanded considerably with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. By 1971, Richard Nixon had seized on productivity as an antidote to the nation’s economic woes. In 1988, Ronald Reagan issued an executive order to enroll every agency in a productivity improvement program. Later, the Clinton administration’s…
The growth of the Global Lighthouse Network (GLN)—from 16 sites in 2018 to nearly 200 today, across 33 countries and 35 subsectors—underscores the progress leaders have made on the original challenge the GLN identified: integrating advanced technologies at scale to realize significant economic and financial benefits. The latest Lighthouses, awarded in October 2024 and January 2025, follow the same core principles identified when the network began. Their leaders recognize that…
Imagine you were a railway executive with a contract to transport valuable cargo across the country. You wouldn’t have a different engine pulling each individual car of cargo. It would be much more efficient and cost-effective to hitch as many cargo cars as possible to the same engine. In fact, you would want a standard set of trains and connectors that would allow you to pull different kinds of cargo…
As President Calvin Coolidge said, in so many words, “The business of America is business.” One hundred years later, his words still ring true, as American businesses have a profound impact on American lives and livelihoods. American businesses employ roughly 83 percent of the US labor force, equivalent to about 136 million jobs—nearly half of which belong to small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. And of course, all Americans…
This report is part of a research collaboration among McKinsey, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. Open source software has long been a critical part of the technology ecosystem. Commercial software typically requires a commercial license or subscription and restricts access to its core technology. However, open source tools are developed collaboratively and made available to the public to use, modify, and distribute with far fewer restrictions.…
Cue the fireworks: The United States will turn 250 next year. It’s a big birthday, and as anyone who has turned 18 or 50 or 75 will know, a milestone like this presents an occasion for both celebration and reflection. The cause for rejoicing is clear: By many accounts, the United States is the longest-lived constitutional democracy in history. The reasons for reflection are equally evident: The journey to this…
The automotive industry is amid the largest transformation to occur since cars began to replace horse-drawn wagons. Electric vehicles (EVs) continue to gain market share, cars are becoming more connected, and autonomous vehicles are increasingly starting to appear on more streets worldwide. But the transition to new technologies has not been without challenges and twists, especially in the EV sector. After rising rapidly for years, EV sales growth has slowed…
Globally, semiconductor companies plan to invest about $1 trillion through 2030 in new fabrication plants (fabs), and the global annual revenue of the industry is expected to reach more than $1 trillion by 2030. This does not include the significant potential revenue from the adoption of gen AI according to even modest upside scenarios. Beyond satisfying market demand, these investments will also help regions increase supply resilience across the semiconductor value…
On this page: Opportunity | Solution | Impact 0 ptincrease incustomer satisfaction (NPS)0Kservice agentstrained in first round0%increase infirst-time resolution rates YoY The Opportunity Giving individuals the skills they need, when they need them Deutsche Telekom serves a vast customer base, including 23.5 million private customers, 2.4 million SMEs, and 300,000 organizations across Germany. With more than 15,000 call center agents and 5,500 field service agents on the ground, the telecom…
At Bosch Mobility’s Suzhou factory (a member of the Global Lighthouse Network designated in 2021), the integration of lean principles and Industry 4.0 technologies has transformed operations, enhancing efficiency and sustainability. The use of AI for predictive maintenance and automated optical inspection has boosted productivity and failure pattern identification, and extensive virtual simulations have enabled the site to achieve more efficient ramp-ups in the production of mobility solutions. Talking with…
Since the United States’ announcement of reciprocal tariffs on April 2, 2025, financial markets around the world have seen heightened volatility, raising concerns about the impact on the global economy. The combined tariffs enacted by the US government since that date have rapidly raised the country’s weighted-average tariff rate to its highest level in the past 100 years, from approximately 2 percent at the start of 2025 to more than…
Alok Sama spent years in corporate finance as a managing director at Morgan Stanley before joining Softbank as CFO and plunging into founder-CEO Masayoshi Son’s world of high-speed, high-risk decision-making. For Sama, the shift involved many eye-opening experiences, which he later shared in a memoir titled, The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble (St. Martin’s Press, 2024). In this episode of Inside the Strategy Room, Sama speaks with…
Companies are striving for end-to-end visibility, efficiency, and agility in their supply chains. Yet outdated infrastructure, fragmented data, and supply chain disruptions make these goals difficult to achieve. Can gen AI bridge the gap? In this episode of McKinsey Talks Operations, host Daphne Luchtenberg speaks with Knut Alicke, author and leader of McKinsey’s Supply Chain Executive Academy; Alberto Oca, McKinsey partner and coleader of digital warehousing in North America; Asaf Somekh,…
In this episode of McKinsey on Building Products, McKinsey partner Rikki Singh sits down with Zeynep Inanoglu Ozdemir, chief marketing officer at Atlassian. With her varied background, Ozdemir helps her marketing team apply innovative, data-driven insights to their product-led-growth (PLG) approach. During their conversation, Singh and Ozdemir discuss the role marketing plays in Atlassian’s PLG efforts; how product, marketing, and sales teams can collaborate to achieve big goals; and how…
The past decade has been exceptionally favorable for US defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. The retirement solutions providers—also known as retirement recordkeepers—that administer DC plans on behalf of various employers have experienced consistent revenue growth over this period, as plans have become more accessible and equity market performance has been strong. Now, things are changing. The retirement industry is approaching a tipping point due to demographic shifts, industry developments, and…
One of the key challenges finance departments face is connecting the various bits of data generated when money moves into or out of the business. This is especially true for small and midsize businesses. Although a profusion of digital payments providers has cropped up to help such companies, many systems generating data from money movement don’t talk to a company’s other systems—at least not well. In this episode of Talking…
On this page: Opportunity | Solution | Impact 0Kworkforce developmentteam members0.7M people across the US & Canadasupported annually$0Bannual earningsgenerated by 2028 The Opportunity Addressing changing workforce needs The US labor market is rapidly evolving, driven by the rise of automation and AI, changes in federal spending, and demographic shifts including a swiftly growing aging population. The result is a fundamental shift in workforce priorities with the economy likely to see…
Global trade turmoil, supply chain uncertainty, consumer jitters: 2025 is shaping up to be a challenging year for the fashion industry—and many brands are worried. But in the words of McKinsey Senior Partner Gemma D’Auria, “Yes, there are risks, but there are also opportunities to be captured.” On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, D’Auria speaks with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about our latest State of Fashion research, including who’s…
Tariffs and trade controls are expanding rapidly around the world. Macroeconomic uncertainty is growing. Second-order effects of government actions are multiplying.The first global economic shock since the COVID-19 pandemic has arrived. While geopolitical tensions have been rising for several years, the recent wave of trade controls and reciprocal tariffs has come on quickly and intensely. Not since the 1930s has the world seen this level of tariff activity. The impact on businesses…
LCFC, Lenovo’s Hefei factory, was designated as a member of the Global Lighthouse Network in 2023. By accelerating the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies and committing to R&D and innovation, LCFC has crafted a “peak manufacturing” paradigm, achieving a leap in manufacturing capabilities. In a talk with McKinsey’s Forest Hou, LCFC CEO Xiaohui Ding shares insights into the factory’s digital transformation journey. Highlighting the challenges of managing a highly personalized…
India is drawing attention as a global business hub. With a strong talent base, a large pool of consumers, and continuously improving infrastructure, the country offers many opportunities for multinational companies over the next decade. According to one estimate, India could gain up to $0.8 trillion to $1.2 trillion from trade-flow shifts by 2030 and boost the country’s GDP share for manufacturing from 16 percent in 2023 to 25 percent…
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Rochelle Toplensky chats with Karthik Ramanna, professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, about his new book, The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World (Harvard Business Review Press, Fall 2024). Ramanna provides a new framework for how to sustainably manage during the “era of outrage” built on fear, lack…
In this episode of The Committed Innovator, restaurateur John McDonald, the founder and CEO of Mercer Street Hospitality, speaks with McKinsey senior partner and innovation leader Erik Roth about maintaining success and equilibrium in the notoriously difficult hospitality industry. This is an edited transcript of their conversation. For more discussions on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform. Erik Roth, McKinsey: Why did you…
People want food delivered to their homes, and they want it nowArne Gast: To kick us off, please tell us a little bit about your business, and how it has evolved since you founded the company in 2000. Jitse Groen: It all started in my attic. We began operating in the Netherlands with Thuisbezorgd.nl, an online food delivery platform. The business grew rapidly, and we rebranded it as Takeaway.com in…
In this episode of Eureka!, McKinsey’s podcast on innovation in life sciences R&D, hosts Navraj Nagra, Alex Devereson, and Meredith Langstaff speak to Ashita Batavia, head of hematology and oncology data sciences, R&D, at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine (J&J). They discuss how real-world data can better inform clinical trials, the shifts in mindsets and capabilities needed to support AI in biopharma, and how to navigate the complexity of clinical…
For Selex, the key growth driver in the coming years will be investments in new capabilities.Franck Laizet: Selex has shown success over the course of the past several years. What are the factors driving that development? Maniele Tasca: The most important factor is the quality of our companies. In 2005, our group consisted of 34 companies, and our market share was between 6 and 7 percent. Today, we have 18…
Daniel Läubli: Albert Heijn is one of the few supermarket chains in Europe that has continued to gain market share over the course of the past six years. What’s the magic ingredient of its success?Marit van Egmond: Of course, there is no single magic ingredient. That would be too simple. There are several key ingredients. The most important one is our rigorous customer focus. We work every day to be…
In a recent speech, US President Donald Trump asserted that the United States has fallen behind in shipbuilding, declaring a goal to make more ships “very fast, very soon.” The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Trump administration is drafting a new executive order intended to energize US shipbuilding. And a proposed piece of US legislation announced in 2024 (sponsored by a bipartisan group of congresspeople) noted an intent…
Anita Leung was still in high school when she got a glimpse into her future in the tech industry. It was an exciting place to build a career, but it could also be a lonely place for a woman. As a sophomore, Anita spotted a flyer about the need for more women in technology. She signed up for a class in peer-networking software. Out of 30 students, she was the…
McKinsey hosted its annual Asian Leaders’ dinner at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January, bringing together more than 70 top executives from around the region. They explored critical themes around Asia’s future, including geopolitical resilience, trade corridors, AI and gen AI, energy transitions, and demographic challenges. Clay Chandler, executive editor, Asia, at Fortune moderated the discussions. In this post-Davos interview, he talks with McKinsey senior partners Gautam…
Much is known about what makes private sector CEOs successful. But research is lacking on the practices of public sector leaders—even though they manage one-third of the global workforce, around a quarter of global GDP, and services that are essential for societies. To help close this knowledge gap, McKinsey has built a database of public service leaders who have excelled, drawing on a global survey of over 750 senior leaders…
As geopolitical tensions continue to mount, governments around the world are expanding restrictions on what domestic companies can sell abroad. Most business leaders are familiar with export controls affecting military or dual-use items (those that have both military and civilian applications). What is harder to untangle are the complex export control restrictions that governments can implement, or have already implemented, to promote policy goals affecting their countries’ technological and economic…
In this episode of McKinsey on Building Products, McKinsey partner Rikki Singh speaks to Tamar Yehoshua, president of product and technology at Glean, an AI platform that helps automate work by connecting and understanding a company’s entire knowledge base. Throughout her years of experience at large software companies, Yehoshua has learned how to build digital products that customers love and how to approach the change management needed for employees to…
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Emily Adeyanju chats with Michael Chad Hoeppner, founder and CEO of GK Training, about his book Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life (Balance/Hachette Book Group, Winter 2025). Hoeppner reveals the common mistakes that hinder effective public speaking and provides the steps you can take to enhance your communication skills. An edited version of the conversation follows,…
The global chemicals industry, which outperformed broader capital markets on returns to shareholders for most of the past two decades, is no longer an outperformer. Fundamental shifts reshaping the landscape have caused a downturn in growth and profitability that could persist in this new era, stemming from lower demand, overcapacities, and global macroeconomic conditions. At this time, the Indian chemicals industry has delivered over 10 to 12 percent total shareholder…
While there has been a recent, notable shift in sentiment toward investing in climate solutions, it is important to maintain a long-term, through-cycle view, as action to mitigate emissions is needed more than ever. Corporate investments into building new climate technology businesses have been rising consistently from 2019 to 2023, driving growth for those actively investing, but current deployment levels of low-emission technologies are at only 10 percent of the…
La frase "boom urbano" prácticamente fue creada para la industria minera, con sucesivas épocas de euforia durante fiebres del oro, seguidas de caídas igualmente intensas. Este patrón se ha repetido durante la década pasada, con las compañías mineras sacudidas por una pandemia global, tensiones comerciales y conflictos geopolíticos (Gráfico 1). Muy pocas han podido capitalizar los períodos de auge para suavizar las recesiones. En cambio, como observamos en 2022, la…
Following a decade of turbulent macroeconomic conditions in which top-line growth has faded away and global consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies’ shareholder returns have plunged from the top to the bottom quartile, the CPG industry has entered a period of reckoning. As inflation slows, the industry must take up an ambitious dual agenda to reimagine portfolios for growth and reinvigorate performance to enhance operational efficiency. As McKinsey has written previously in…
March 2025For the first time since March 2022, surveyed executives foresee geopolitical instability as the top risk to companies’ growth over the next 12 months. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey on economic conditions, weak demand—which was the most-cited risk in the previous three quarters—is now the second-most-cited disruption, followed closely by changes in the trade environment and trade relationships. While private sector respondents remain more likely to expect improvement than…