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.
Global risk productivity survey: Four themes shaping risk management
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Using a multipronged approach, chief risk officers can get a better grip on risk and build the strategic risk function of the future.
Article
The future of risk: How global trends are reshaping risk management
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A rapidly shifting and interconnected risk landscape, technology, and AI transform what good risk management looks like. Financial institutions must embrace new operating models and best practices.
Report
Resilient firms and economies: Unlocking growth in emerging markets
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Resilience is like a bridge spanning a turbulent river. The waters below may surge unpredictably, but the bridge’s strength lies in its design, maintenance, and ability to withstand.
Interview
Competitive advantage through cybersecurity: A board-level perspective
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Five leading cybersecurity executives and public company directors discuss how chief information security officers and boards can work together to grow and protect their organizations.
Article
Accelerating impact from day one: A guide for new CROs
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The first few months in the chief risk officer role are critical to lay the foundation for success. By practicing six habits, CROs can differentiate themselves from day one.
Report
Resilience pulse check: Harnessing collaboration to navigate a volatile world
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We continue to learn that we operate in a world in which we must expect the unexpected, yet companies feel unprepared to face rising threats and uncertainties.
Article
Breaking the mold: Five behaviors of leading growth transformers
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Leading companies are using transformation to achieve profitable growth—enabled by specific behaviors.
McKinsey Direct
Eye in the sky: Launching a geopolitical risk unit
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A geopolitical risk unit can add perspective to navigate and identify opportunities in a fragmenting world.
Report
Building a resilient tomorrow: Concrete actions for global leaders
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Leaders need to move toward putting resilience into action.
Article
Resilience during uncertainty: What industrial leaders must know
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McKinsey’s Global Resilience Survey reveals how leaders in advanced industries view the current landscape and highlights the challenges ahead as they manage uncertainty.
Interview
An interview on building organizational resilience: A board-level priority in today’s challenging times
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Boards of directors play an important role in helping companies navigate economic uncertainty. Collaboration among CEOs, boards, and owners helps effectively manage today’s complex business environment.
Article
Resilient portfolio growth for energy companies in volatile times
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Energy companies have faced considerable uncertainty. Those that can identify opportunities and act quickly can profitably grow their business in the years to come and increase their lead over peers.
Podcast
Geopolitical risk: Navigating a world in flux
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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
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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)
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The need for board-level strategic conversations on geopolitical risk is urgent.
Article - MGI Research
The complication of concentration in global trade
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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
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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
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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
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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 - MGI Research
Global flows: The ties that bind in an interconnected world
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The path to sustainable, inclusive growth lies in building resilience now.
Article
The postpandemic board agenda: Redefining corporate resilience
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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
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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
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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
Seeing the full picture: Managing the commodity trading risk triangle
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Overall returns in the commodity trading space have dropped significantly since 2023. A few risk management best practices can...
Article
Securities services firms and sanctions: Six steps to managing risk
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Securities firms often overlook sanctions risk management. But in an evolving regulatory environment, leading institutions are...
Article
Risk transfer: A growing strategic imperative for banks
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Innovative risk transfer strategies can help banks optimize capital, unlock new revenue streams, and foster new partnerships...
Article
Moving from crisis to reform: Examining the state of counterparty credit risk
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Counterparty-credit-risk management is becoming more challenging and complex, reflecting a disrupted global economic, political,...
Article
2023, a testing year: Will the macro-scenario range widen or narrow?
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Will the world move to solve its structural problems and make superior short-term choices? Yes or no: that’s the first question...
Article
Financing the net-zero transition: From planning to practice
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Financial institutions will play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero economy. To maximize the opportunity, they must...
Article
Managing financial crime risk in digital payments
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To face down the financial-crime threat, payments service providers can learn from banks while utilizing their own advanced technological...
Interview
NatWest Chairman Sir Howard Davies on operational resilience in banking
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Sir Howard Davies discusses the ways regulations, interest rates, monetary policy, climate risk, and economic threats are affecting...
Article
Financial institutions and nonfinancial risk: How corporates build resilience
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As nonfinancial companies move from enterprise risk management to a resilience-based approach, their experience in nonfinancial...
Article
Holistic customer assistance through digital-first collections
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With families continuing to struggle to make ends meet, lenders that find the right combinations of digital-first customer support...
Article
Operational resilience has become critical. How are banks responding?
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Managing nonfinancial risk requires far more than simply shoring up legacy systems and processes. Leading institutions focus on four actions.
Article
Governance, risk, and compliance: A new lens on best practices
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Companies globally say they see room for improvement in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), a new McKinsey survey shows. But a few are bucking the trend with smarter, more effective capabilities.
Article
How agile operating models benefit risk and compliance functions
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After bringing agile operating models to customer-facing, frontline business units, financial institutions are also seeing the benefits of agile for risk and compliance functions.
Article
Response and resilience in operational-risk events
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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
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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 - MGI Research
On the cusp of a new era?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Here’s how leading companies can build a business that’s ready for tomorrow.
Article
The resilience imperative for medtech supply chains
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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 - MGI Research
Risk, resilience, and rebalancing in global value chains
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Companies need an understanding of their exposure, vulnerabilities, and potential losses to inform resilience strategies.
Article - MGI Research
COVID-19 and climate change expose dangers of unstable supply chains
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With the world undergoing its second “once in a generation” disruption in 12 years, a reappraisal of supply chains is in order.
Article
What is RegTech?
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RegTech, or “regulatory technology,” refers to technologies that improve processes at financial-services organizations, particularly those related to risk and compliance.
Article
Taking a business-critical approach to supplier nth-party IT risk management
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Supply chain cybersecurity vulnerabilities frequently make headlines, so being prepared must be a priority. Here’s a new approach to protecting business-critical processes from nth-party risks.
Article
How generative AI can help banks manage risk and compliance
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In the next five years, generative AI could fundamentally change financial institutions’ risk management by automating, accelerating, and enhancing everything from compliance to climate risk control.
Article
As gen AI advances, regulators—and risk functions—rush to keep pace
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AI and its supercharged breakthrough, generative AI, are all about rapid advancements, and rule makers are under pressure to keep up.
Article
A technology survival guide for resilience
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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
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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’
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Recent cyberattacks focus attention on the vulnerabilities of operations technology to web-based threats.
Article
Five differentiators of outperforming family-owned businesses in India
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India has many family-owned businesses, but only a few can boast of sustained success for generations. We explore five points of difference between the best and the rest.
Article - MGI Research
Addressing the revolving door in risk
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As the field of risk management evolves, the value proposition for employees has to evolve as well.
Article
Raising the resilience of your organization
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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
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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
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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
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Hybrid work is happening. Your culture will need to catch up—fast.
Article
Speed and resilience: Five priorities for the next five months
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Four global success stories offer insights and lessons learned on achieving organizational agility.
Article
Strengthening institutional risk and integrity culture
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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
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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.
Finding tomorrow’s ‘resilients’: Propelling companies into the next wave of growth
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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
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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
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Organizations that rapidly reinvented themselves in response to the pandemic can provide lessons on resilience.
Article
The emerging resilients: Achieving ‘escape velocity’
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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 Collection
McKinsey on Risk & Resilience
Organizations today operate in an environment defined by persistent uncertainty. Geopolitical fragmentation, technological disruption, cyberthreats, and shifting economic conditions are creating risks that are increasingly interconnected and difficult to predict. This issue of McKinsey on Risk & Resilience explores how companies that are likely to succeed are not just managing these challenges better—they are building resilience as a way to compete better, and focusing on building the skills needed to adapt, respond, and create value during disruption.
Industry perspectives
Article
How retailers can build resilience ahead of a recession
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Recent history shows how retailers can prepare for a downturn to create competitive advantage.
Article
Resilience in transport and logistics
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The transportation-and-logistics sector is especially susceptible to economic shocks. Here’s how to prepare your operations...
Article
Down but not out: How automakers can create value in an uncertain future
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After delivering record profits in 2017, global automakers have faced several challenges over the past 12 months. Can the industry...
Interactive
Beating the cycle: Building resilience in chemicals
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Economic downturns take their toll—and chemical companies are no exception. Our research finds companies that increased resilience...
Article
Resilience in TMT: Winning in downturns
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Economic downturns hold substantial opportunities for companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sector....
Article
Recession and resilience: Preparing healthcare leaders for the next economic downturn
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Economic ebbs and flows are called “cycles” for a reason. The challenge for healthcare leaders is not whether the...