Business Resilience

The world is experiencing a level of disruption and business risk not seen in generations. Some companies freeze and fail, while others innovate, advance, and even thrive. The difference is resilience.

Institutional Resilience

Financial Resilience | Operational Resilience | Technological Resilience | Organizational Resilience | Reputational Resilience | Business Model

Issue

McKinsey on Risk & Resilience

– Today’s uncertainty and disruption of business and society is challenging leaders in unforeseen ways. It is amid this environment that with this, our 14th edition, we are changing the title of our cornerstone publication to McKinsey on Risk & Resilience. This change is more of an acknowledgement than a shift. Even before the last year, our work, research, and analysis on these pages had come to reflect the reality that many threats have come to life. “Risk,” as defined by financial institutions, has not changed, and we understand that management of existing and potential threats is only part of the function. Positioning and growth amid this environment is equally essential in an effort to build resilience.

Institutional Resilience

Podcast

Geopolitical risk: Navigating a world in flux
– In a fast-fragmenting world, geopolitical instability has vaulted to the top of the CEO agenda. Here’s what today’s fraught global dynamics mean for leaders—and how they can begin grappling with geopolitical risk successfully.
Interview

How three global companies navigate geopolitical risk to build resilience
– Top executives at Google, Intel, and Pfizer spoke with McKinsey’s Ziad Haider about the risks that their companies have faced and anticipate facing in 2023.
Article

Black swans, gray rhinos, and silver linings: Anticipating geopolitical risks (and openings)
– The need for board-level strategic conversations on geopolitical risk is urgent.
Article - McKinsey Global Institute

The complication of concentration in global trade
– Concentration in the origins of traded products is widespread, prompting questions about whether to diversify or decouple.
Article

Risk and resilience priorities, as told by chief risk officers
– Amid the storm of crises and disruptions, leading financial institutions are recognizing risk’s strategic and resilience-building role.
Podcast

The board’s role in building resilience
– Boards of directors can help executive teams build the foresight, response, and adaptation capabilities they need to manage future shocks.
Interactive

What matters most? Six priorities for CEOs in turbulent times
– With economic troubles mounting, it’s a time to tighten belts and put on hard hats. But don’t forget the jet pack, to accelerate into the next phase of growth.
Discussion Paper - McKinsey Global Institute

Global flows: The ties that bind in an interconnected world
– Economic and political turbulence have prompted speculation that the world is already deglobalizing. But the evidence suggests that global integration is here to stay, albeit with nuance.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

A defining moment: How Europe’s CEOs can build resilience to grow in today’s economic maelstrom
– Can leaders lift their companies to the next frontier of resilience—not only to survive but also to thrive?
Article

Something’s coming: How US companies can build resilience, survive a downturn, and thrive in the next cycle
– The US economy continues to throw off mixed signals. But one thing is becoming clear: executives should prepare for an extended period of higher interest rates.
Article

How to build geopolitical resilience amid a fragmenting global order
– Organizations need to strategically invest in capabilities, people, processes, structures, and technology to navigate the risks arising from an evolving and fraught geopolitical landscape.
Article

War in Ukraine: Twelve disruptions changing the world
– The war is devastating lives and roiling markets. Here we track the disruptions that seem likely to shape lives and livelihoods, beyond the immediate crisis.
Interview

How Volkswagen board member Hiltrud Werner finds resilience
– Resilience is top of mind for Hiltrud Werner in her role as a member of Volkswagen’s board of management as COVID-19, new regulations, and the energy transition test the automaker’s mettle.
Article

From risk management to strategic resilience
– Senior executives at leading companies reveal their commitment to move from defensive risk management to a forward-looking stance based on strategic resilience.
Interview

What resilience means to Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar
– For Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar, resilience requires diverse perspectives, local solutions, playbooks to help anticipate the unexpected, and a regard for unforeseen consequences.
Interview

How CEO Alain Bejjani, an emerging-markets leader, models resilience
– To manage through the pandemic, the CEO of Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim has leaned on servant leadership, multistakeholder engagement, and his long-term goals.
Article

Three keys to a resilient postpandemic recovery
– The path to sustainable, inclusive growth lies in building resilience now.
Article

The postpandemic board agenda: Redefining corporate resilience
– As boards move beyond crisis management, survey results suggest that specific risks and organizational issues are increasingly top of mind.
Podcast

The role of boards in fostering resilience
– The lessons learned from the current crisis can help corporate boards make the organizations they serve stronger.
Article

Next-generation nowcasting to improve decision making in a crisis
– Traditional nowcasting has served its purpose well, but the COVID-19 crisis proved challenging for most models. A next-generation approach supports critical decision making and strategy moving forward.
Article

The resilience imperative: Succeeding in uncertain times
– Strengthening institutional resilience has never been more important.
Survey

How boards have risen to the COVID-19 challenge, and what’s next
– According to a new survey, the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated operational changes and stronger collaboration between directors and management that are key to a board’s success.
Article

Rethinking resilience: Ten priorities for governments
– Due to the pandemic, governments are under increased pressure to act quickly and at scale. By reimagining how they work, they can create resilient societies and public services for the next normal.
Article

Meeting the future: Dynamic risk management for uncertain times
– The world is changing in fundamental ways, leading to dramatic shifts in the landscape of risks faced by businesses.

Financial Resilience

Article

2023, a testing year: Will the macro-scenario range widen or narrow?
– Will the world move to solve its structural problems and make superior short-term choices? Yes or no: that’s the first question... on the test.
Article

Financing the net-zero transition: From planning to practice
– Financial institutions will play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero economy. To maximize the opportunity, they must... make fundamental changes across portfolios and organizations.
Article

Managing financial crime risk in digital payments
– To face down the financial-crime threat, payments service providers can learn from banks while utilizing their own advanced technological... skills.
Interview

NatWest Chairman Sir Howard Davies on operational resilience in banking
– Sir Howard Davies discusses the ways regulations, interest rates, monetary policy, climate risk, and economic threats are affecting... the resilience of the banking system.
Article

Financial institutions and nonfinancial risk: How corporates build resilience
– As nonfinancial companies move from enterprise risk management to a resilience-based approach, their experience in nonfinancial... risk can provide a model for banks.
Article

Holistic customer assistance through digital-first collections
– With families continuing to struggle to make ends meet, lenders that find the right combinations of digital-first customer support... will experience the benefits, including longer-term customer loyalty and insurance against being left in the wake of more ambitious peers.

Operational Resilience

Article

Response and resilience in operational-risk events
– Direct losses from operational-risk failures are mounting, and in today’s volatile economic environment, consequent losses in share price are many times greater.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

A devilish duality: How CEOs can square resilience with net-zero promises
– Amid turbulence on the path to net zero, leaders will have to be much nimbler to balance resilience with an energy future that is secure, affordable, and clean. Five actions can help.
Discussion Paper - McKinsey Global Institute

On the cusp of a new era?
– Current economic and political turbulence could presage the start of a new era that is structurally very different with a new narrative of progress.
Article

Using analytics to address inflation risks and strengthen competitive positioning
– In the new inflationary environment, company leaders can protect their business and gain competitive advantage by deploying analytics-aided strategies.
Article

Speed and resilience: Five priorities for the next five months
– As businesses recover from COVID-19-related disruption and reimagine themselves for the next normal, they need to ask—and answer—five questions.
Article

Four ways pharma companies can make their supply chains more resilient
– Pharmaceutical supply chains have become global and complex. With more outsourcing, new modalities, and novel ways to reach patients, it’s critical to ensure that they can withstand shocks.
Article

Building the internal-audit function of the future
– Due to the pandemic, many organizations have prioritized short-term priorities for internal-audit functions, but now is also the time to recalibrate for potential long-term uncertainty and complexity.
Video

The need for resiliency
– Here’s how leading companies can build a business that’s ready for tomorrow.
Article

The resilience imperative for medtech supply chains
– The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted issues with supply chains around the world. As medtech companies prepare for the next normal, they have a mandate to rebuild their supply chains with resilience as a new priority.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute

Risk, resilience, and rebalancing in global value chains
– Companies need an understanding of their exposure, vulnerabilities, and potential losses to inform resilience strategies.
Article - McKinsey Global Institute

COVID-19 and climate change expose dangers of unstable supply chains
– With the world undergoing its second “once in a generation” disruption in 12 years, a reappraisal of supply chains is in order.

Technological Resilience

Article

A technology survival guide for resilience
– Resilience means understanding the criticality of a business process, the capability of the underlying technology, the business impact if the technology fails, and the organization’s risk tolerance.
Blog Post

Bringing digital to risk management: An interview with Mark Cooke
– Mark Cooke of Innovation Data Platform discusses the challenges of digital innovation in risk management and the role of partnerships in the regulatory-technology space.
Interview

Managing a cyber risk event: ‘Be a student of a crisis’
– Julia Houston, chief strategy and marketing officer at Equifax Inc., explains how the credit bureau managed one of the biggest data breaches in history, her learnings, and how cybersecurity is rapidly changing.
Survey

Why digital trust truly matters
– Consumer faith in cybersecurity, data privacy, and responsible AI hinges on what companies do today—and establishing this digital trust just might lead to business growth.
Article

Securing your organization by recruiting, hiring, and retaining cybersecurity talent to reduce cyberrisk
– Shed the conventional methods. Talent-to-value protection defines the most important cybersecurity roles that demonstrate the greatest reduction in risk for the enterprise.
Article

Model risk management 2.0 evolves to address continued uncertainty of risk-related events
– Organizations this year plan to enhance their MRM framework capabilities—including risk culture, standards, and procedures—and to upgrade their validation resources with MRM 2.0 firmly on the agenda.
Interactive

The data-driven enterprise of 2025
– Rapidly accelerating technology advances, the recognized value of data, and increasing data literacy are changing what it means to be “data driven.”
Podcast

Cyber resilience: Protecting America’s digital infrastructure
– Faced with rising cyberthreats, government and the private sector will need to improve their digital hygiene while also preparing for the next wave of cyber adversaries.
Article

Fast forward: How cloud computing could transform risk management
– Cloud-based computing will provide tangible benefits for banking risk management functions, but risk leaders face significant challenges migrating their systems and activities from on-premises to the cloud.
Article

Building cyber resilience in national critical infrastructure
– Recent cyberattacks focus attention on the vulnerabilities of operations technology to web-based threats.
Blog Post

IT resilience for the digital age
– Incumbents are experiencing more frequent and more severe service disruptions as they accelerate their digital capabilities. To build IT resilience, they must adopt seven core practices.
Article

International personal-data transfer amid regulatory upheaval
– The Schrems II ruling created a noteworthy disruption in the data-privacy environment. Here, we outline a risk-based approach to managing uncertainty from the ruling.

Organizational Resilience

Article - McKinsey Global Institute

Addressing the revolving door in risk
– As the field of risk management evolves, the value proposition for employees has to evolve as well.
Article

Raising the resilience of your organization
– Repeatedly rebounding from disruption is tough, but some companies have a recipe for success: a systems mindset emphasizing agility, psychological safety, adaptable leadership, and cohesive culture.
Interview

Aon CEO Greg Case: Resilience protects, but it also promotes growth
– As CEO of a company whose raison d’être is helping firms make better decisions, Greg Case has wide-ranging knowledge and a nuanced perspective on resilience and its importance in volatile times.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours
– A record number of employees are quitting or thinking about doing so. Organizations that take the time to learn why—and act thoughtfully—will have an edge in attracting and retaining talent.
Podcast

Culture in the hybrid workplace
– Hybrid work is happening. Your culture will need to catch up—fast.
Article

Speed and resilience: Five priorities for the next five months
– As businesses recover from COVID-19-related disruption and reimagine themselves for the next normal, they need to ask—and answer—five questions.
Interview - McKinsey Quarterly

Driving for resilience: An interview with the CEO of India’s Tata Motors
– Guenter Butschek, CEO of Tata Motors, shares his perspectives on the COVID-19-era challenges of leading a major global automotive company based in India, and the opportunities just up the road.
Interview

Resilience in a crisis: An interview with Professor Edward I. Altman
– One of the leading researchers in corporate financial health discusses what executives can do to help their companies endure the financial stresses of crisis times.
Article

When nothing is normal: Managing in extreme uncertainty
– In this uniquely severe global crisis, leaders need new operating models to respond quickly to the rapidly shifting environment and sustain their organizations through the trials ahead.
Article

Doing vs being: Practical lessons on building an agile culture
– Four global success stories offer insights and lessons learned on achieving organizational agility.

Reputational Resilience

Article

Strengthening institutional risk and integrity culture
– Many of the costliest risk and integrity failures have cultural weaknesses at their core. Here is how leading institutions are strengthening their culture and sustaining the change.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

One move companies can take to improve diversity
– Many companies are trying to increase their hiring of diverse employees. Opening hubs, factories, and other worksites where Black people live is a powerful but overlooked lever.

Business Model

Webinar

Finding tomorrow’s ‘resilients’: Propelling companies into the next wave of growth
– Leaders can learn from the last global recession and plan for several economic outcomes, including, as McKinsey senior partners Cindy Levy and Bob Sternfels suggest, taking thoughtful actions to balance growth, margins, and optionality.
Article

Four regions, four stories of recovery and resilience
– An assessment of shareholder returns in the world’s four largest capital markets reveals how the global stock market fared in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article

Strategic resilience during the COVID-19 crisis
– Organizations that rapidly reinvented themselves in response to the pandemic can provide lessons on resilience.
Article

The emerging resilients: Achieving ‘escape velocity’
– The experience of the fast movers out of the last recession teaches leaders emerging from this one to take thoughtful actions to balance growth, margins, and optionality.

Related Collections

The Next Normal: Emerging stronger from the coronavirus pandemic
Explore McKinsey’s curated collection on the business outlook for 2021 and beyond—plus insights about how companies can emerge stronger from the coronavirus crisis.

McKinsey on Risk, Number 13, October 2022
– Today’s business and public-sector leaders face a risk landscape disrupted at levels that few have seen before and none has ever confronted as an executive. We have reached a defining leadership moment, where executives are taking a step back and redefining resilience.

Industry perspectives

Article

How retailers can build resilience ahead of a recession
– Recent history shows how retailers can prepare for a downturn to create competitive advantage.
Article

Resilience in transport and logistics
– The transportation-and-logistics sector is especially susceptible to economic shocks. Here’s how to prepare your operations... for a smoother ride.
Article

Down but not out: How automakers can create value in an uncertain future
– After delivering record profits in 2017, global automakers have faced several challenges over the past 12 months. Can the industry... find a sustainable path to value creation in this disruptive environment?
Interactive

Beating the cycle: Building resilience in chemicals
– Economic downturns take their toll—and chemical companies are no exception. Our research finds companies that increased resilience... in the last downturn made bold moves.
Article

Resilience in TMT: Winning in downturns
– Economic downturns hold substantial opportunities for companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sector.... By starting now to build an action plan and execute no-regret moves, companies can put themselves on a path to emerge resilient through the next slowdown.
Article

Recession and resilience: Preparing healthcare leaders for the next economic downturn
– Economic ebbs and flows are called “cycles” for a reason. The challenge for healthcare leaders is not whether the... next downturn will occur—it’s whether you’re ready for it.

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