In a nearly four-decade career as an institutional investor, Christopher Ailman has experienced multiple economic cycles. As investors navigate one of the most difficult operating environments in history, Ailman, chief investment officer (CIO) of the California State Teachers’ Retirement Fund (CalSTRS), a US public pension fund with a portfolio valued…

McKinsey: Delivery Hero is a pioneer in the meal delivery space. What factors, capabilities, and strategic decisions have contributed to its success? What were the turning points, if any?Niklas Östberg: One of the key strengths of Delivery Hero was always our willingness to take risks and innovate. Many of our…

Shinpei Kato, CEO of TIER IV, envisions a future of transportation in which open source revolutionizes the autonomous-vehicle industry. Such a disruption would parallel Android’s rise to dominate the mobile software market, which is a testament to the power of open source. It has been a cornerstone not only in…

This year will be challenging. We expect the increase in costs to outgrow the increase in revenues.Lionel Souque, CEO, Rewe GroupMcKinsey: What was 2023 like for Rewe? What are the things that stand out? Lionel Souque: It was quite a good year, especially from a sales perspective, although that was…

For the European grocery industry, 2023 was a challenging year. Inflation led consumers to tighten their belts, leading to a drop in volume and significant downtrading. As a result, industry growth was significantly below food price inflation. Food price inflation in Europe was 12.8 percent in 2023, while grocery sales…

The US skilled labor market is facing record-high pressure, particularly for companies with manufacturing and construction operations. Increasing labor scarcity, amplified by the COVID-19 disruptions, has intensified competition for talent, raising the sectors’ average wages by more than 20 percent since the first quarter of 2020. Since money wages have…

Conventional approaches to strategy have had to adapt in recent years, with rapid technological change and buffeting from external forces. In this episode of Inside the Strategy Room, the authors of the new book, The Imperfectionists: Strategic Mindsets for Uncertain Times, talk about how companies can benefit from acting quickly…

Right now, we’re inside a computer program?—Neo (The Matrix, 1999) The 1999 science fiction film The Matrix blurred the lines between the real and the virtual. Less than a quarter of a century later, dramatic advances in AI and digital simulation are disrupting how technology itself is created and used.…

Operating behind the scenes, aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) is one of the airline industry’s most essential functions. Without it, airlines couldn’t achieve the remarkable feat of safely moving nearly ten million people some 13 billion air miles around the world each day.Today, this indispensable industry is facing unprecedented…

Now that we’ve concluded the first quarter of 2024, we thought it would be a good opportunity to take stock of the state of consumption in China. In this edition of “China Brief”, we’ll do a quick scan of key macroeconomic indicators and zoom in on some of the core…