Business Resilience

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.

Leading companies are using transformation to achieve profitable growth—enabled by specific behaviors.

A geopolitical risk unit can add perspective to navigate and identify opportunities in a fragmenting world.

Leaders need to move toward putting resilience into action.

McKinsey’s Global Resilience Survey reveals how leaders in advanced industries view the current landscape and highlights the challenges ahead as they manage uncertainty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The need for board-level strategic conversations on geopolitical risk is urgent.

Concentration in the origins of traded products is widespread, prompting questions about whether to diversify or decouple.

Amid the storm of crises and disruptions, leading financial institutions are recognizing risk’s strategic and resilience-building role.

Boards of directors can help executive teams build the foresight, response, and adaptation capabilities they need to manage future shocks.

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.

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.

Can leaders lift their companies to the next frontier of resilience—not only to survive but also to thrive?

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.

Organizations need to strategically invest in capabilities, people, processes, structures, and technology to navigate the risks arising from an evolving and fraught geopolitical landscape.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The path to sustainable, inclusive growth lies in building resilience now.

As boards move beyond crisis management, survey results suggest that specific risks and organizational issues are increasingly top of mind.

The lessons learned from the current crisis can help corporate boards make the organizations they serve stronger.

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.

Strengthening institutional resilience has never been more important.

Counterparty-credit-risk management is becoming more challenging and complex, reflecting a disrupted global economic, political,...

Will the world move to solve its structural problems and make superior short-term choices? Yes or no: that’s the first question...

Financial institutions will play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero economy. To maximize the opportunity, they must...

To face down the financial-crime threat, payments service providers can learn from banks while utilizing their own advanced technological...

Sir Howard Davies discusses the ways regulations, interest rates, monetary policy, climate risk, and economic threats are affecting...

As nonfinancial companies move from enterprise risk management to a resilience-based approach, their experience in nonfinancial...

With families continuing to struggle to make ends meet, lenders that find the right combinations of digital-first customer support...

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.

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.

Direct losses from operational-risk failures are mounting, and in today’s volatile economic environment, consequent losses in share price are many times greater.

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.

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

In the new inflationary environment, company leaders can protect their business and gain competitive advantage by deploying analytics-aided strategies.

As businesses recover from COVID-19-related disruption and reimagine themselves for the next normal, they need to ask—and answer—five questions.

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.

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.

Here’s how leading companies can build a business that’s ready for tomorrow.

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.

Companies need an understanding of their exposure, vulnerabilities, and potential losses to inform resilience strategies.

With the world undergoing its second “once in a generation” disruption in 12 years, a reappraisal of supply chains is in order.

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.

AI and its supercharged breakthrough, generative AI, are all about rapid advancements, and rule makers are under pressure to keep up.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Shed the conventional methods. Talent-to-value protection defines the most important cybersecurity roles that demonstrate the greatest reduction in risk for the enterprise.

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.

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

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.

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.

Recent cyberattacks focus attention on the vulnerabilities of operations technology to web-based threats.

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.

As the field of risk management evolves, the value proposition for employees has to evolve as well.

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.

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.

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.

Hybrid work is happening. Your culture will need to catch up—fast.

As businesses recover from COVID-19-related disruption and reimagine themselves for the next normal, they need to ask—and answer—five questions.

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.

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.

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.

Four global success stories offer insights and lessons learned on achieving organizational agility.

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.

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.

Organizations that rapidly reinvented themselves in response to the pandemic can provide lessons on resilience.

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.

Recent history shows how retailers can prepare for a downturn to create competitive advantage.

The transportation-and-logistics sector is especially susceptible to economic shocks. Here’s how to prepare your operations...

After delivering record profits in 2017, global automakers have faced several challenges over the past 12 months. Can the industry...

Economic downturns take their toll—and chemical companies are no exception. Our research finds companies that increased resilience...

Economic downturns hold substantial opportunities for companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sector....

Economic ebbs and flows are called “cycles” for a reason. The challenge for healthcare leaders is not whether the...