When buying an electric vehicle, consumers want an experience that matches their expectations of the car itself. That is, something exciting and innovative but also reliable and predictable. They expect to both transact online and negotiate with a real person, and they still need to take a test drive. However,…
How will hotel operators use new technologies, respond to travelers’ changing needs and preferences, and become more sustainable? Five leaders of McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice envision what the hotel experience might be like in the 2030s. The following transcript has been edited for clarity. Convenience and customization Caroline…
Private capital loved software —or it did for about a decade, during which capital deployment skyrocketed. In more recent quarters, software markets have reflected global macroeconomic uncertainty. Publicly listed companies’ multiples swooned; access to debt markets tightened; and private markets continued to hold large amounts of dry powder. Developments in…
After signs of improving economic sentiment in the spring, consumer spending seems to be in a summer slump. Across age and income groups, American consumers continue to spend less than they did a year prior—except on travel. Real year-over-year spending has declined for the third month in a row, while…
When have you been your most productive, creative, or innovative? Think back to a time when you really made yourself proud, and try to remember the environment you were working in. Maybe it’s your current job, if you have challenging work and supportive, engaged colleagues. Maybe it was at university,…
ZeroNorth uses data to help shipping companies become more efficient and, by extension, greener. Its interactive platform provides simulations, predictions, analysis, and data-driven insights that can aid shipping companies in their quest to traverse oceans while consuming less fuel. Founded in June 2020, the Copenhagen-based start-up now has about 200…
American restaurant executives are bracing for another challenging year. While some supply challenges and immediate inflationary pressures have abated, many leaders anticipate hefty annual increases in labor and input costs over the next five years. Restaurants also continue to endure pressure to meet evolving consumer demands in an increasingly competitive…
Pervasive societal inequity in the United States is strikingly evident in the start-up world. In 2022, Black and Latino founders received only 1 percent and 1.5 percent respectively of total US venture capital (VC) funding. Women-founded teams received 1.9 percent of VC funds, and only 0.1 percent of VC funds…
It’s easy to go along to get along: give lots of managers an equal say and allot each division its “fair share” of capital. Usually, however, a laissez-faire approach underserves a corporation’s most promising opportunities for growth. Companies typically provide lump sums to division heads, often in proportion to current…
If you shopped at a FairPrice supermarket in Singapore in early 2022, there’s a small chance that the person who was working the till was none other than FairPrice’s freshly minted group CEO, Vipul Chawla. “Unless I invest at least 100 hours doing something, I don’t have the license to…
Challenging the perception that insurance is a low-tech industry, AIA Group has updated its offerings and processes to become more accessible to millions of customers in Asia. In this episode of the McKinsey on Insurance podcast, Biswa Misra, the group chief technology officer and life operations officer at AIA, spoke…
Over the past few decades, industrial automation has evolved gradually, with few changes in market structure. But the pace of change is accelerating, thanks to technology disruptions and macro trends such as reshoring, a global skilled labor shortage, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Is the day likewise coming…
Even under the best of circumstances, leaders of corporate functions face enormous cost constraints. Tougher times only raise the pressure to make functions as efficient and effective as is humanly possible. What makes the job even harder is the widespread belief that efficiency and effectiveness counterbalance each other: focusing on…
The payments start-up Forage applies disruptive technology to the social sector, bringing digital payments to the distribution of government benefits in the United States. In this episode of Talking Banking Matters, we hear from Forage’s co-founder and CEO, Ofek Lavian, about why he chose to tackle what used to be known…
As CEO of Merck, Ken Frazier gained the respect of his employees, shareholders, and the broader community not only through the company’s performance during his 11-year tenure but his handling of several tests of his leadership. Now Merck’s former executive chairman, he recently shared how his experience growing up during…
Many incumbent organizations across industries and sectors want to become more like tech companies: fast, agile, and dominant. They’re doing so to remain competitive at a time when B2B and B2C customers have high and rapidly changing expectations and digital disruptors are upending the business landscape. The key to making…
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) supports the growth of US renewables at an unprecedented pace. Solar, storage, and onshore wind capacity could reach more than 1,240 gigawatts (GW) over the next decade, growing 2.7 times faster than projected before the IRA took effect (Exhibit 1). The IRA…
Latin America was once considered an e-commerce laggard, full of consumers who were reluctant to buy online. No longer. The region now has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sectors in the world. The start-up Melonn (founded in Colombia in 2020 by six friends) aims to capitalize on Latin America’s booming…
A energetic and tightly grouped collection of social media reaction icons including hearts, thumbs up, happy and surprised faces along with comment and texting bubbles and hashtags. You probably already know what social media is. Whether you cringe at the memory of your Myspace page from the early 2000s, keep…
Once considered toys, shared electric kickscooters (e-kickscooters) have grown up. Expanding in number from virtually nothing in 2017 to a peak of 350 million trips among global leading players in 2022, shared e-kickscooters have caught the attention of regulators worldwide. To better understand how guidance may evolve, we identified and…
Generative AI: It’s powerful. It’s accessible. And it’s poised to change the way we work. On this episode of the McKinsey Talks Talent podcast, talent leaders Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger talk with McKinsey Technology Council chair Lareina Yee and global editorial director Lucia Rahilly about the promise and pitfalls…
The travel app Hopper launched in 2015, with the bulk of its initial revenue coming from airline ticket sales. A few years later, the company ramped up a travel fintech business—selling consumers algorithmically enabled financial products such as price-freezing capabilities and cancellation insurance. It has since expanded those offerings…
One lesson for software companies has become abundantly clear during the last 18 months: pricing needs to be on the C-suite’s agenda. Before then, the industry had been growing so fast for over a decade that executives and investors tended not to view individual product margins as an overriding concern.…
A small, picturesque village on the Mediterranean coast isn’t usually what comes to mind when we think of the typical birthplace for a global tech unicorn. But Croatia-based Infobip has grown into a global communications giant reaching more than seven billion mobile devices and “things” in more than 200 countries…
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Lucia Rahilly chats with McKinsey partners Emily Field and Bryan Hancock, as well as senior partner Bill Schaninger, about their new book, Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work (Harvard Business Review Press, July…
Why drive to your neighboring city or region when you can fly? Over the past 30 years or so, the standard response has been because driving is cheaper, more convenient, and probably faster door to door. That may not be true for much longer, however. Advances in aerospace technology, new…
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many companies have implemented flexible work patterns in pursuit of better employee experience, real estate cost savings, and more sustainable operations. However, a McKinsey survey of real estate and employee experience executives from 50 companies reveals that most firms have only scratched the surface. The…
The agriculture industry is under pressure. Dramatic cost increases for inputs and labor are putting farmers’ profitability at risk. Globally, farmers report that prices for inputs such as fertilizer and crop protection chemicals have risen by 80 to 250 percent over the past few years. Climate change is also squeezing…
Great design is good business. In 2018, a McKinsey analysis of 300 publicly listed companies showed that those with the strongest design behaviors grow twice as fast, and generate almost twice as much value, as their industry peers. In our previous article, we argued that Japanese companies could have even more…
Success breeds complacency, complacency breeds failure. Andy Grove Most people know the fable The Tortoise and the Hare. In the story, the two animals challenge one another to a race to prove who is faster. The hare starts strong and is soon out of sight. Midrace, the hare lies down…
For the past few years, the middle class in Vietnam has been on the rise, spreading out geographically and growing increasingly diverse. Consumers are growing in number and becoming more demanding and discerning. It is estimated that more than half of the Vietnamese population will enter the global middle class…
US healthcare organizations continue to grapple with the impacts of the nursing shortage—scaling back of health services, increasing staff burnout and mental-health challenges, and rising labor costs. While several health systems have had some success in rebuilding their nursing workforces in recent months, estimates still suggest a potential shortage of…
It is becoming increasingly essential for companies to understand and address the effects that externalities can have on their social license. The latest McKinsey Global Survey on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues asked more than 1,100 respondents in more than 90 countries how their organizations are rising to…
Buying life insurance can be a long, uncomfortable process for consumers. Northwestern Mutual, a 166-year-old company, decided to change the paradigm by building an automated, efficient, and clear solution. In this episode of the McKinsey on Insurance podcast, Eli Larrea, a senior partner in McKinsey’s Boston office, sat down with…
When it comes to women’s representation in the US workplace, the public sector continues to have a clear edge over corporations. However, new McKinsey research finds that governmental organizations may struggle to keep leading the way toward gender parity. The latest edition of our annual Women in the Workplace report…
Semiconductor wafers are the basis of the integrated circuits so crucial to most of today’s technology. The wafers’ packaging—whether metal, plastic, ceramic, or glass—connects them to their environment and protects them from chemical contamination and damage from light, heat, and impacts. Compared with the front-end process of designing and fabricating…
In 2022, the beauty market—defined as skincare, fragrance, makeup, and haircare—generated approximately $430 billion in revenue. Today, beauty is on an upward trajectory across all categories. It has proven to be resilient amid global economic crises and in a turbulent macroeconomic environment. Beauty is now an industry that many people,…
The value of working together is intuitive to most leaders. Capturing the full value of operating as one firm, however, is elusive for most. Those who drive integration and standardization from the top down often stifle business-level innovation, entrepreneurship, and client responsiveness, which can further create talent attraction and retention issues.