Growth & Innovation

Helping to identify, accelerate, organize and mobilize large organizations for outsized growth

Growth

Supporting companies’ growth transformations by helping them answer “when, where and how” while setting aspirations to embed longstanding changes.

Innovation

Innovation is critical to growth, particularly as the speed of business cycles continues to increase. Most companies understand the importance of innovation but fall short when it comes to execution.

84%

of CEOs believe innovation is critical to growth

80%

of business models are at risk

6%

of CEOs are satisfied with their innovation performance

Examples of our work

Identifying and capturing growth opportunities

We helped a global medical-device client identify potential growth themes by using our proprietary growth-scanning solutions. We then applied machine-learning solutions and pulled in the best internal and external experts to prioritize growth themes and identify groups in the ecosystems to partner with or acquire.

Market analysis and insights

We helped a global consumer-electronics company double its market share in only two years. Using detailed data on individual-store performances and geographic-forecasting data, we created city clusters and prioritized the top areas with the greatest potential for growth. We then shifted resources, which helped the client move from fifth in the market to second.

Shifting mindsets to drive performance

We supported a global consumer electronics company in transitioning from being a fast follower into a leading innovator. Using the insights to action approach, the client was able to create a new breakthrough portfolio pipeline and had more than ten new areas of innovation under development with potential to generate over $500 million in revenue.

Featured Capabilities

Essentials for growth: We provide capabilities and a toolkit to set and calibrate growth targets, diagnose growth performance, and use proven solutions to find new attractive pockets of growth beyond a company’s core business by bringing together the best experts, sources, and algorithms.

Machine-learning algorithms enable us to quickly scan the best proprietary, public data, and text sources—including unstructured web sources. Amongst other inputs for assessing the attractiveness and feasibility for a company to enter a specific new growth pocket, we use venture-flow metrics to indicate the likelihood for the company to achieve natural ownership in this new space.

Eight essentials of innovation: A proprietary diagnostic tool for clients to benchmark innovation performance relative to peers to help create a clear plan based on the company’s innovation archetype, strengths, and weaknesses to improve performance

Featured Insights

Article

Igniting your next growth business

– Growth outperformers prioritize expansion into business areas where they have a ‘natural ownership’ advantage.
Interactive

McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2022

– Which technology trends matter most for companies in 2022? New analysis by the McKinsey Technology Council highlights the development, possible uses, and industry effects of advanced technologies.
Article

Lessons from growth outperformers in logistics

– Industry players can learn from past crises when setting their growth ambitions during a time of unprecedented uncertainty.
Article

Building an R&D strategy for modern times

– The age of the insular R&D organization is over. To serve as a company’s innovation engine, R&D strategy needs to be equipped for today’s fast-moving world.
Article

How growth can help Europe’s companies face the coming economic crisis

– CEOs can draw on the region’s spirit of innovation to recover revenues, and even grow, after COVID-19. It’ll take some big bets.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

The innovation commitment

– To catalyze breakthrough growth, leaders must set bold aspirations, make tough choices, and mobilize resources at scale.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

The eight essentials of innovation

– Strategic and organizational factors are what separate successful big-company innovators from the rest of the field.

Featured Podcasts

Kevin Hostetler of Rotork on accelerating growth

– The CEO of the industrial-equipment supplier shares lessons from an ambitious organizational transformation.

The Committed Innovator Podcast

Join leading experts, senior management, and board directors inside the strategy room as they share their insights on how to break through inertia and unlock big strategic moves.

The Committed Innovator: A conversation with Loonshots author Safi Bahcall

– The entrepreneur and innovation adviser explains how to make bold innovations flourish.

Simon Pryce of Ultra Electronics on growth

– Here’s how he turned an aggregation of acquisitions into a cohesive innovation engine.

The Committed Innovator: A conversation with Neal Gutterson of Corteva

– How a biotech scientist helped transform a traditional science organization into an innovation leader.

The Committed Innovator: An interview with Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo

– When a marketing executive discovered an unexpected market opportunity, she disrupted the company’s original business—and became CEO in the process.

The Committed Innovator: An interview with Salesforce’s Simon Mulcahy

– The cloud software provider’s executive vice president and chief innovation officer discusses how Salesforce’s innovation process creates distinctive buying experiences.

The Committed Innovator: A discussion with Beth Comstock

– How tolerance for risk, patience, and thinking small (where funding is concerned) can lead to breakthrough innovation.

Connect with our Strategy & Corporate Finance Practice