We use cookies essential for this site to function well. Please click "Accept" to help us improve its usefulness with additional cookies. Learn about our use of cookies, and collaboration with select social media and trusted analytics partners here.

Accept Use minimal essential cookies

Business Resilience

Resilience is the ability of a business to withstand, adapt, and thrive in the face of shocks that are internal and external, as well as known and unanticipated.

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

Issue

McKinsey on Risk, Number 10, January 2021

– The journal offering McKinsey’s global perspective and strategic thinking on risk, focusing on the key risk areas that bear upon the performance of the world’s leading companies.

Financial Resilience

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.
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

Banking system resilience in the time of COVID-19
– Capital cushions at European, UK, and US banks look adequate in most scenarios—and challenged in others. In either case, they must be rebuilt, and that will require some difficult decisions.

Operational Resilience

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.
Video

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

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.
Article

Four ways to improve technology service resiliency
– Companies can significantly reduce technology system outages and other costly tech glitches by improving incident response and how they manage change.

Organizational Resilience

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

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

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.
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.

Reputational Resilience

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

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

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

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.
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.
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.

Related Collection

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.

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.

Connect with Business Resilience

Contact us