HR leaders’ role in M&A: An interview with Lisa Blair Davis

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:17 mins read

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…

Going all in: Why employee ‘will’ can make or break transformations

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:15 mins read

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…

A look at the technology trends that matter most

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:19 mins read

Innovation and interest in the tech sector remain strong, despite market challenges and dips in investment. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey technology experts Lareina Yee and Roger Roberts share findings from the McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2024 report. They talk with editorial director Roberta Fusaro about where innovation is…

What the real estate industry needs to know about experiential retail

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

Experiential retail is a growing way for retailers to draw in shoppers, increase omnichannel sales, and build their brands. Real estate owners and operators that can attract experiential retailers can benefit in multiple ways. Here’s what it takes. Katy McLaughlin: What is experiential retail? Colleen Baum: It’s a format designed…

Diversifying global supply chains: Opportunities in Southeast Asia

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

The global supply chain is constantly changing, shaped by manufacturers around the world striving to limit risk, build resilience, manage costs, and explore new markets for production. As many manufacturers seek to reduce their dependence on a single supply source, Southeast Asia is emerging as a prominent manufacturing hub, reflected…

CEO and chairman Sean Doyle on British Airways’ transformation

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

Sean Doyle has spent most of his career at British Airways (BA) and was appointed CEO in October 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Doyle has been focused on rebuilding the company to create a better BA for the airline’s colleagues and customers. Earlier this year, he announced a…

Retail’s outperformers: Lessons in value creation

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

When it comes to value creation, retailers have never had it easy. The challenges are well-known: consumer preferences and behaviors are fast changing and rarely predictable. Many retail businesses are highly dependent on supplier actions—a fact that’s become evident to consumers in recent years as supply chain disruptions resulted in…

Asia: The epicenter of global trade shifts

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:6 mins read

The world remains deeply connected by virtue of global trade, but the geometry of economies’ connections has been shifting. Some major economies are moving toward trading more with geopolitically closer partners, while others continue to deepen their international trade networks both geographically and across the geopolitical spectrum. Asia is at…

Transforming Central America’s workforce and productivity with gen AI

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

The business world is still coming to grips with the seismic potential of generative AI (gen AI). According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the technology could contribute $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy. In addition, 50 percent of work activities could be automated from 2030 to…

The gen AI skills revolution: Rethinking your talent strategy

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

If every company needs to be a software company, do you have a software organization that can deliver? The answer to that question could be decisive for the future of many companies.The ability to compete depends increasingly on how well organizations can build software products and services. Already, nearly 70 percent…

How Asia is harnessing AI for social good

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

The UN Sustainable Development Goals were set to be achieved by 2030—yet only 17 percent of SDG targets are on track. In Asia, research has shown that the region will only achieve the SDGs by 2062 if it carries on its present trajectory. Can AI play a meaningful role in…

An AI platform tailored for the enterprise

Cohere is carving a name for itself in the exploding AI market by focusing squarely on business clients and collaborating with major companies such as Google, Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft, among others. Founded in 2019 by college friends Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst, and Ivan Zhang, the company maintains offices in…

A board-level view of cyber resilience

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

Amid growing corporate and public sector cyber breaches and recent high-profile technology outages, significant changes are occurring in both the role of boards in cybersecurity and within the cybersecurity industry itself. In this interview, McKinsey’s Sean Brown speaks with Vinnie Liu, the cofounder and CEO of the cybersecurity firm Bishop…

The energy transition: Where are we, really?

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:23 mins read

Almost nine years after the landmark Paris Agreement and nearly halfway through what has been called a “decisive decade” for climate change, the world stands at a critical juncture in their transition away from fossil fuels. Translating into action the ambitious climate targets that have been put in place by…

Building a modern mining company: Interview with Neal Froneman

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

To power the energy transition, mining companies will need to pivot toward producing critical minerals such as copper, lithium, and rare earth elements, which are essential components of electric vehicles, solar panels, and more. Meanwhile, industry leaders are contending with legacy issues on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and…

Approaching generative AI with a beginner’s mindset

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

Applying a growth mindset is the best way for businesses to approach the rapid changes born of generative AI (gen AI), says Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI and today’s guest on this episode of the At the Edge podcast. Shih speaks with McKinsey senior partner Lareina Yee about the transformative…

Global Economics Intelligence executive summary, July 2024

Despite current geopolitical tensions, the global economy remains resilient. Economic growth in surveyed economies is accelerating, as growth in both the manufacturing and services sectors picked up in June. Manufacturing growth was largely stable (except in the eurozone, where it contracted faster) while services sectors remained bright, albeit expanding at…

Pixels of Progress: A granular look at Vietnam’s development journey

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:17 mins read

A country level perspective of Vietnam can provide a good, general overview of what is taking place in the country—just imagine what a pixelated breakdown 230 times more granular could reveal. Such a granular deep dive is now available with a new dataset, Pixels of Progress, compiled by the McKinsey…

Reimagining insurance with a comprehensive approach to gen AI

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

Despite forging ahead with generative AI (gen AI) use cases and capabilities, many insurance companies are finding themselves stuck in the pilot phase, unable to scale or extract value. Jörg Mußhoff sat down with Cameron Talischi and Khaled Rifai to discuss how organizations can escape “pilot purgatory” by leveraging traditional AI…

What employees say matters most to motivate performance

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

The past few years have been a confounding time in performance management. Disruptions of long-standing workplace norms have led many employees to rethink their expectations of employers regarding remote work, employee burnout, and work–life balance. Compounding these challenges, an inflationary economy and a slower hiring market have put pressure on employers…

Helping India’s e-commerce leapfrog into the future

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

In this episode of The Committed Innovator, McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth speaks with Shiprocket cofounder and CEO Saahil Goel about how he built his e-commerce logistics company into a highly successful platform that is helping launch new entrepreneurs all over India. This is an edited transcript of their discussion.…

The versatile leader: How learning to adapt makes CEOs better

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:23 mins read

Some of the most innovative and creative people in history succeeded because they were versatile. They were able to master more than one discipline and then combine them to forge new ideas and inventions. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, the quintessential Renaissance man, was a writer, printer, scientist, and politician. He…

From promising to productive: Real results from gen AI in services

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

Generative AI (gen AI) could provide the productivity boost operations leaders have hoped for, as well as a means to fight cost pressures—if only leaders could get going. McKinsey’s latest tech trends research finds that only 11 percent of companies worldwide are using gen AI at scale.Operations is a major gap:…

Prudential embraces customer centricity: An interview with Priscilla Ng

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

As Prudential plc embraces digital transformation, the 176-year-old insurance company finds itself navigating a delicate balancing act: harmonizing the power of AI with a human touch, essential to delivering exceptional customer experiences. Prudential prioritizes data-driven insights to offer customers more-personalized, proactive, and efficient services and drive sustainable growth across global…

Shiny objects: Insurance productivity in an era of AI and automation

The emergence of AI and generative AI (gen AI) has brought new energy to the age-old conversation about productivity. In this episode of the McKinsey on Insurance podcast, McKinsey senior partner Jörg Mußhoff sits down with partners Elena Pizzocaro and Selim Sulos to discuss why revisiting insurance productivity is at the top…

How innovation can accelerate industry momentum

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

People often speak of industry momentum as if it were a force of nature independent of individual companies’ actions—like the mysterious “ether” scientists once believed filled the universe and allowed light to travel. While demographics and macroeconomic factors outside organizations’ control do contribute to momentum, the trajectory and pace of…

The hard stuff: Navigating the physical realities of the energy transition

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

At a glance The energy transition is in its early stages, with about 10 percent of required deployment of low-emissions technologies by 2050 achieved in most areas. Optimized over centuries, today’s energy system has many advantages, but the production and consumption of energy accounts for more than 85 percent of…

German healthcare in the postpandemic era: Physician insights

The German healthcare system, renowned for its efficiency and quality of care, is at a critical juncture in the postpandemic era. The results of a McKinsey survey of physicians in Germany highlight substantial challenges that could be affecting the quality and reliability of patient care (see sidebar, “Research methodology”). The…

US banks’ commercial deposits are back on a path to growth

US banks’ deposit operations have experienced a difficult few years, with total deposit balances declining 7 percent between the first quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023. In 2022, the US Federal Reserve began pursuing quantitative tightening (QT), or reducing its balance sheet by not reinvesting all the…

Generative AI: How will it affect the future of work in Australia?

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

With between 79 and 98 percent of jobs in Australia predicted to be automated by 2030, enabling vast productivity gains, how will this change the nature of work? Generative AI (gen AI) will have different effects on different sectors; however, early adopters in any sector can drive positive change—at the…

Delivering on construction productivity is no longer optional

When it comes to creating a more sustainable future, the construction industry has a great role to play. On top of fulfilling critical economic and societal needs for offices, housing, hospitals, and infrastructure, the industry can help meet net-zero goals by 2050 by developing and executing the needed projects, including…

The key to accelerating AI development? Pragmatism plus imagination

While AI continues to influence the way we work in exciting new ways, it is crucial for organizations to apply guardrails to keep it safe. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey senior partners Alexander Sukharevsky and Lareina Yee dig into new research on AI adoption, with editorial director Roberta Fusaro. In our second segment,…

Author Talks: A transformational approach to leadership

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Raju Narisetti speaks with McKinsey senior partners Dana Maor, Kurt Strovink, and Ramesh Srinivasan and senior partner emeritus Hans-Werner Kaas about their new book, The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out (Portfolio/Penguin Group, USA, September 2024).…

Building an engineering culture and resilient technology

The pace of change in technology has created many opportunities—and raised as many challenges. Overcoming the challenges to grasp the opportunities requires tools and processes that nurture an engineering culture, build stable foundations for resilient technology operations, and manage complex cloud costs. Driving this shift requires modern technology leaders to…

Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation

After nearly two years of debate, the verdict is in: generative AI (gen AI) is here to stay, and its business potential is massive. We’ve already witnessed an exponential rate of gen-AI-related innovation, which promises to accelerate automation and enhance productivity, innovation, and the quality of work, as well as…

The loneliest job? How top CEOs manage dilemmas and vulnerability

For many leaders, assuming the role of CEO is a key career goal and the culmination of decades of hard work. The CEO role is also among the most challenging and demanding positions in any organization—particularly during times of uncertainty and upheaval.About 100 CEOs have passed through the McKinsey Center…

Managing uncertainty in the silicon carbide wafer market

Over the past few years, silicon carbide (SiC) has emerged as an attractive alternative to silicon as a semiconductor base material because it offers improved performance, most notably realized in applications requiring high power. Although various industrial devices now incorporate SiC, the majority of emerging demand will come from applications…

Start spreading the news: New York City travel and tourism are back

As the travel industry began to recover in 2021, we expressed our view that the enduring allure of New York would continue to draw visitors back to the city. That projection is well on track, as more than 62 million people visited New York City in 2023, representing 93 percent of…

LLM to ROI: How to scale gen AI in retail

Once generative AI (gen AI) hit the mainstream, in late 2022, it took little time for retail executives to realize the potential in front of them. Mentions of artificial intelligence (AI) in retailers’ earnings calls soared last year—which was no surprise, given that gen AI is poised to unlock between…