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.

Six Dimensions of Resilience

Institutional Resilience

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

Issue

McKinsey on Risk, Number 11, August 2021

– Gearing up for life beyond the crisis, organizations face an array of risks. In our latest issue of McKinsey on Risk, we offer our unique perspectives about the imperatives of strengthening institutional resilience.

Institutional Resilience

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

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.
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.

Operational Resilience

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

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.
Article

Derisking digital and analytics transformations
– While the benefits of digitization and advanced analytics are well documented, the risk challenges often remain hidden.
Article

Derisking AI by design: How to build risk management into AI development
– The compliance and reputational risks of artificial intelligence pose a challenge to traditional risk-management functions. Derisking by design can help.
Article

Building a cloud-ready operating model for agility and resiliency
– Four operating-model changes can help companies accelerate the journey to cloud.

Organizational Resilience

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 11, August 2021
– Gearing up for life beyond the crisis, organizations face an array of risks. In our latest issue of McKinsey on Risk, we offer our unique perspectives about the imperatives of strengthening institutional resilience.

Featured Video

Video

Staying resilient during an economic downturn

While the last downturn was severe, a group of companies we've called "resilients" flourished. How did they do it?

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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