Rewiring maintenance with gen AI

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:7 mins read

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…

How to get return to office right

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:18 mins read

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…

Using generative AI to transform customer experience

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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.…

The CEO as elite athlete: What business leaders can learn from modern sports

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:14 mins read

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…

How AI is transforming strategy development

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:14 mins read

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…

Economic mobility: Making lives better now—and for the long term

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:20 mins read

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…

Accelerating decarbonization across the farming supply chain

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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…

Collectible cars: From niche market to growth and innovation engine

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:25 mins read

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…

Everything is better as code: Using FinOps to manage cloud costs

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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…

CEO imperatives in Asia’s new era

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

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…

Residential solar: Down, not out

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

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…

Using AI and data to make immersive art

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:21 mins read

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.…

The future of the office

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:7 mins read

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…

Mining for operational excellence

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:16 mins read

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…

Unlocking the next frontier of personalized marketing

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:16 mins read

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…

Nature finance and biodiversity credits: A private sector road map to finance and act on nature

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:3 mins read

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…

Fostering better decisions through holistic ROI estimates

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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…

Improving government productivity: A systemwide approach

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read

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…

The rise of Asian global players

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:4 mins read

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.…

China Consumption: Welcoming the Year of the Snake

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:5 mins read

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…

Geopolitics and the geometry of global trade: 2024 update

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:39 mins read

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…

Improving B2B energy propositions: Four trends reshaping the industry

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:18 mins read

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…

Author Talks: How women can overcome the ‘broken rung’

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:24 mins read

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,…

How medtech companies can create value via inventory optimization

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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…

Gain transformation momentum early by optimizing working capital

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read

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…

Boosting auto sales productivity: A playbook for excellence

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:8 mins read

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…

Robert Hormats on how today’s geopolitics affects companies

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read

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…

Global Economics Intelligence executive summary, December 2024

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:9 mins read

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…

When separating businesses, people are the key to unleashing value

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:11 mins read

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…

Asia’s emerging business corridors: New highways to growth

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:11 mins read

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…

Improving refinery margins through value chain optimization

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:12 mins read

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…

Talking about the hard stuff: Where are we in the energy transition?

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:22 mins read

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…

Europe in the intelligent age: From ideas to action

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Technology is increasingly shaping the prosperity and sovereignty of nations. The development of disruptive technologies such as AI, along with geopolitical events, is creating new arenas of competition, centered on investment in the innovation, production, and adoption of advanced technologies. However, large European corporations invested €700 billion a year—or €3,000…

Daniel Yergin on energy and the new world order

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read

Daniel Yergin explained the state of the world in his 1990 Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. He did it again in 1998 with Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy and in 2011 with The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking…

What is SaaS?

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:13 mins read

Against a backdrop of light blue, three fluffy white clouds release a robust rain of blue pixels. Software as a service (SaaS) refers to cloud-based software programs delivered to users over the internet. You probably use SaaS products even if you don’t realize it; in fact, much of our online lives…

Ten tests for nature strategy

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:24 mins read

In 2025, corporate action on nature has evolved from what was often seen as an environmental obligation into a strategic necessity. Taking action is not just about preserving our natural resources—it is a key element of business strategy. Nature plays a critical role as a foundation for the global economy,…

Thriving workplaces: How employers can improve productivity and change lives

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:58 mins read

As the world grapples with rapid technological advancements, demographic shifts, and evolving work paradigms, it is vital to invest in employee health. Why prioritize workforce health? Investing in employee health can substantially increase economic returns. Research by the McKinsey Health Institute in collaboration with the World Economic Forum indicates that…