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Beauty

The beauty industry is a dynamic space and the sector has experienced strong growth in the past few years, driven by consumers’ engagement in the category and unprecedented product and marketing innovation. We advise companies across the beauty ecosystem, from large, established companies and retailers to small, disruptive brands and contract manufacturers on how to navigate this shifting landscape and successfully position themselves in the category.

What we do

Strategy and growth

We help set strategic direction and identify opportunities for growth. Our work spans corporate finance, corporate strategy, digital strategy, portfolio strategy, and risk management.

Digital and analytics

We help clients unleash advanced analytics on rich data to turn consumer insights into commercial excellence. This data can be a unique asset to generate value through targeted product development, pricing, promotions, marketing, and supply-chain excellence. We also help beauty brands and retailers boost their e-commerce presence and digital marketing effectiveness.

Operations

We develop distinctive operations strategies by optimizing supply chain and ensuring world-class performance within individual functional areas. Our work ranges from operations digitalization and next-generation procurement to product development and lifecycle strategy.

Revenue-growth management

We guide clients in mastering the fundamentals of assortment, pricing, promotions, and trade investment. Our focus is on taking revenue-growth management (RGM) to the next level through strategic RGM, precision RGM, and RGM capability building at scale.

Organization

We help maximize company and functional performance through optimal organizational structure, processes, and performance management. Our deep expertise in transformational change and capability building helps companies foster innovation and build the business models needed to sustain long-term impact.

M&A

We partner with beauty companies to maximize the success of their end-to-end M&A activity through identifying complementary partnerships and integrating new businesses—including those with different business models and scale—into the organization.

Private equity

We help private equity firms make better investment decisions in the beauty industry at every stage of the deal’s life cycle and build greater returns through active management of portfolio companies. We also advise on investment-firm strategy and development, creating value through improved performance.

Featured capabilities

  • Predictive-growth navigator: accurately projects demand and consumption for specific categories and markets using advanced machine-learning models to combine McKinsey Global Institute macroeconomic scenarios and consumer insights. It can be tailored to a variety of categories and markets including VMS specific applications.
  • Periscope for consumer goods: improves return on sales through better pricing, promotions, assortment, and performance management.
  • Commercial-excellence benchmarking: identifies winning marketing and sales best practices by linking consumer-packaged goods company actions to results seen in the market.
  • Leap by McKinsey: works with established organizations to imagine, build, and scale new businesses, and develop the capabilities needed to do it again and again.

Featured insights

Podcast

Black beauty brands and consumers: Where do we go from here?
– Inequity is rife in the beauty industry, says a new McKinsey report. Ulta Beauty CEO Dave Kimbell and two of the report’s authors discuss how to better support Black brands and serve Black consumers.
Article

The beauty battleground: The sprint to win on services
– Beauty companies looking to capitalize on fast-evolving trends should act on the growing convergence of brands that offer beauty products and brands that offer services.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Black representation in the beauty industry
– Black beauty consumers and brands face deep challenges when it comes to equity. Removing those barriers can lead to greater opportunity for everyone in the industry.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Meet the Black beauty execs
– Creating a path to a more equitable beauty market for Black brands represents a $2.6 billion opportunity. McKinsey talked to four founders and entrepreneurs who are leading the way.
Article

From extreme to mainstream: The future of aesthetics injectables
– McKinsey research shows that the global aesthetics injectables market could grow by 12 to 14 percent a year over the next five years if manufacturers and providers capitalize on the underlying trends.
Report

The State of Fashion 2023: Holding onto growth as global clouds gather
– In 2023, the global fashion industry will need to weather inflation while finding opportunities in shifting consumer patterns, channel and digital marketing strategies, and manufacturing approaches.
Collection

Global surveys of consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis
– Consumer optimism varies by country depending on what stage each country is in the coronavirus contagion cycle.
Podcast

Meet Generation Z: Shaping the future of shopping
– The newest consumer generations—Gen Z and millennials—are upturning retailers’ expectations. Here’s how—and what to do about it.
Article

What makes Asia−Pacific’s Generation Z different?
– Gen Zers in the Asia–Pacific region aren’t like their older siblings. Here is what you need to know.
Article

The young and the restless: Generation Z in America
– Connected and exuberant, the newest consumer generation in the United States is beginning to define itself.
Article

How COVID-19 is changing the world of beauty
– The beauty industry has been resilient in the past. Could this crisis have a different outcome?
Interview

Connectivity with the consumer: The Honest Company’s formula for growth
– In his third year as the CEO of Honest, consumer-goods veteran Nick Vlahos has big plans for the fast-growing maker of baby and beauty products.

Featured experts

Danielle Bozarth
Senior Partner, New York
Brings more than 20 years of experience serving a broad set of B2C companies, including in travel, logistics, consumer, and retail
Kristi Klitsch Weaver
Senior Partner, Chicago
Advising a wide variety of consumer-facing, global organizations at pivotal strategic points on topics including strategy, growth,...

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