What Do Your Customers Want in 2023?
08/02/2023
For many of us, a new year represents a fresh start. New Year’s resolutions offer an annual opportunity to transform our lives for the better, whether that’s by improving our health, relationships, finances, or whatever else we find most important. This mindset can create new opportunities for businesses as well — but shifting needs and […]
Prediction Consensus: What the Experts See Coming in 2023
07/02/2023
Prediction Consensus: What the Experts See Coming in 2023 In this, our fourth year of Prediction Consensus (now part of our more comprehensive 2023 Global Forecast Series), we’ve learned a few things about the universe of predictions, experts, outlooks, and forecasts. Experts are reasonably good at predicting the future one year out, though they are […]
9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2023 and Beyond
06/02/2023
In 2022, business leaders faced an increasingly unpredictable environment, with evolving return-to-office policies, higher employee turnover, and burned-out employees (more than ever before, in fact). In 2023, organizations will continue to face significant challenges: a competitive talent landscape, an exhausted workforce, and pressure to control costs amid a looming economic downturn. How employers respond could […]
How Women on Boards Navigate the “Warmth-Competence” Line
03/02/2023
The road to gender parity on corporate boards has been a long one, but there are signs of progress. In 2022, for instance, 45% of new Fortune 500 board appointees were women and the percentage of women on these boards had risen to almost 30%. Yet, the point of being a director is not simply […]
The Biggest Global Risks of 2023
02/02/2023
The Biggest Global Risks of 2023 The profile of risks facing the world is evolving constantly. Events like last year’s invasion of Ukraine can send shockwaves through the system, radically shifting perceptions of what the biggest risks facing humanity are. Today’s graphic summarizes findings from the Global Risks Report, an annual publication produced by the […]
How a CEO Can Create Psychological Safety in the Room
01/02/2023
There’s a power dynamic in every room. If you’re the CEO and you’re in the room, you control that dynamic. Positional power is consolidated in your hands, and what you say and do can draw people out or make them recoil with anxiety and fear. In my work with hundreds of CEOs over the past […]
The $16 Trillion European Union Economy
31/01/2023
The European Union has the third-largest economy in the world, accounting for one-sixth of global trade. All together, 27 member countries make up one internal market allowing free movement of goods, services, capital and people. But how did this sui generis (a class by itself) political entity come into being? A Brief History of the […]
How to Talk with Your Team About the Elephant in the Room
30/01/2023
No one mentions the hostility and blatant conflict between two team members. A colleague softens the data to avoid delaying the launch date of a project. At the Monday team meeting, the leader doesn’t mention the fact that two team members were fired the week before. These situations occur at many organizations, and they are […]
How Boards Can Guide Company Strategy on Social Issues
23/01/2023
For the past few years, we’ve been fielding calls from CEOs and other C-suite leaders who find themselves under increasing pressure to engage in — and take public positions on — issues that their companies would have considered outside their purviews only a few years ago. Recent research, including Edelman’s Trust Barometer, suggests that this pressure […]
Buy and scale: How incumbents can use M&A to grow new businesses
20/01/2023
In line with that goal, business leaders report that their companies are currently building 50 percent more new businesses per year than they did two to five years ago.2“New-business building in 2022: Driving growth in volatile times,” McKinsey, November 14, 2022. But as effective as building new businesses through internal innovation and organic growth can […]
Top Heavy: Countries by Share of the Global Economy
19/01/2023
Countries by Share of the Global Economy With 2022 over we we can recap many historic milestones of the year, like the Earth’s population hitting 8 billion and the global economy surpassing $100 trillion. In this chart, we visualize the world’s GDP using data from the IMF, showcasing the biggest economies and the share of global […]
5 Questions for Business Leaders to Ask in Uncertain Times
18/01/2023
These days, it feels like we are living in the business world’s version of Billy Joel’s 1989 hit, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Inflation, geopolitical tensions, energy shortages, labor shortages, employees’ evolving expectations, rising interest rates, increasing cyber and data risks, insatiable investor expectations — the list goes on. Just like the song says, today’s […]
Digital transformations: The five talent factors that matter most
17/01/2023
Digital transformations—whether digitalizing an entire company or setting up a digital and advanced-analytics (DnA) start-up within the organization—are a significant challenge. We have frequently seen these transformations stumble along the way, and leaders often have difficulty sustaining any improvements over time. Across the transformation journey, talent and technology are critical to success, from planning and […]
Innovating in Uncertain Times: Lessons from 2022
16/01/2023
Economic uncertainty, social and political unrest, environmental catastrophe, and global health crises continue to impact people and businesses worldwide. Yet, amidst each of these disruptions, managers must maintain forward momentum to ensure their teams achieve success. This past year we’ve seen tech giants fall due to mismanagement, recklessness, economic turmoil, a lack of innovation, or […]
HR’s new operating model
13/01/2023
The way in which organizations manage people used to be relatively straightforward. For more than two decades, multinational companies generally adopted a combination of HR business partners, centers of excellence, and shared service centers, adjusting these three elements to fit each organization’s unique nature and needs. Today, this approach—introduced by Dave Ulrich in 19961David Ulrich, […]
How to Grow Your Top Line in a Down Market
12/01/2023
Facing a tough economy — demand down, interest rates up, disruption and uncertainty everywhere — companies are cutting back. A survey of 3,000 global executives conducted by consultancy AlixPartners, where we work, reveals that 20% have already conducted layoffs, 20% expect to, and 25% have imposed hiring freezes. In addition, 33% said they are building […]
The U.S. Stock Market: Best and Worst Performing Sectors in 2022
11/01/2023
The U.S. Stock Market: Best and Worst Performing Sectors in 2022 The markets in 2022 were characterized by a lot more pain than gain. In the U.S., the Fed hiked interest rates seven times. Globally, central banks raised interest rates for the first time in years in order to combat surging inflation. The Russian invasion […]
Taking a skills-based approach to building the future workforce
02/12/2022
As a pro bono contribution to the alliance, we worked in tandem to assess opportunities and actual skills-based job progressions that workers have made. Using these data, the team launched a series of practical tools, including a job progression tool 5 5. Job Progression Tool, McKinsey & Company and Rework America Alliance, accessed October 28, […]
Adapting Your Sales Approach in a Downturn
01/12/2022
There has been plenty of debate over whether the U.S. economy is in a recession. Regardless of the technical definitions and economic perspectives, many organizations see challenging headwinds on the horizon. Even if companies aren’t feeling the economic pinch yet, they will be more skittish when it comes to spending when news cycles predict doom […]
Global Trade Series: Fragmentation in the Digital Economy
30/11/2022
Since its creation, the internet has vastly expanded sociopolitical and economic development around the world. This is largely attributed to the its ability to facilitate communications, data sharing, and commerce on a truly global scale. Unfortunately, a free and open internet will not always be guaranteed. Fragmentation between rival nations is growing, and it threatens […]
How Executive Teams Shape a Company’s Purpose
29/11/2022
Company purpose has mainstreamed its way into management vernacular, and with plenty of good reason. Evidence from across industry sectors has proven that genuinely purpose-driven organizations outperform their non-purpose-driven competitors on critical metrics. For example, brands that have a clear commitment to improving their customers’ quality of life outperform the stock market by 120%, and […]
Starting strong: Making your CEO transition a catalyst for renewal
28/11/2022
It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive. What makes the top job so different from the leadership roles that come before it? To start with, new CEOs discover quickly that they are accountable for everything, that their reporting relationships have changed dramatically, and that the job is extremely lonely. […]
3 Steps to Prepare Your Supply Chain for the Next Crisis
25/11/2022
No one can say they weren’t warned about the likelihood of a global pandemic or a war in Ukraine. And, in the light of President Xi Jinping’s recent comments at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where he reaffirmed his government’s commitment to take control of Taiwan one day, no one can say that […]
The digital revolution is brewing in the industrials sector
24/11/2022
Over the past 20 years, industrial players have pursued value creation through a focus on product margin optimization, channel sales excellence, and programmatic M&A. These strategies proved fruitful in the prepandemic era. From 2014 to 2019, traditional financial measures of value creation reflected robust sector-level performance: ROIC rose 13 percent—in excess of the typical sector-level […]
Is Your Board Prepared for New Cybersecurity Regulations?
23/11/2022
Boards are now paying attention to the need to participate in cybersecurity oversight. Not only are the consequences sparking concern, but the new regulations are upping the ante and changing the game. Boards have a particularly important role to ensure appropriate management of cyber risk as part of their fiduciary and oversight role. As cyber […]
Which Populations Feel Their Country is on the Wrong Track?
22/11/2022
Which Populations Feel Their Country is on the Wrong Track? Plato once used the allegory of a Ship of Fools to push for his vision of a wise philosopher-king as the ideal pilot for a ship of state. Looking at the most recent numbers from Morning Consult Political Intelligence’s Projections of Country Trajectories, you would […]
6 Ways to Reenergize a Depleted Team
21/11/2022
A client of Ron’s, “Kelsey,” a division general manager of a large food manufacturer, recently told him, “Everyone on my team seems tired…all the time. I ask them how they’re doing, and they tell me ‘fine.’ If someone asks for time off, I say yes. They get the work done, but it seems like they’re […]
How Companies Should Set — and Report — DEI Goals
14/10/2022
Can setting workforce diversity goals and posting progress reports help companies move the needle on diversity? This approach has spread like wildfire in the last two years. It’s too soon to tell whether the new fad is working, so we turned to past experience of firms that set goals and posted progress as early as […]
Revenue growth management: Building capabilities to sustain impact
13/10/2022
Key takeaways The growth of online shopping, supply chain constraints, shifts in the channel mix, gross margins strained by rising inflation—these are just a few of the headwinds consumer companies have faced over the past several years. Not surprisingly, revenue growth management (RGM) has emerged as a top priority for consumer leaders in this environment. […]
How Diversity of Thought Can Fit into Your DEI Strategy
12/10/2022
Nathan Green, known to many as Uncle Nearest, was an enslaved man in the 1850s in Lynchburg, Tennessee. He was known to make whiskey using a special technique he learned when cleaning water back home in West Africa. His method of filtering whiskey through sugar maple tree charcoal became known as the famous “Lincoln method.” […]
The Most Searched Consumer Brands in 2022
11/10/2022
In today’s fast-paced world, a strong brand is a powerful asset that helps a business stand out in a sea of competition. What are some of the most popular brands around the world? One way to gauge this is by looking at Google searches to see what consumers are searching for online (and therefore, what […]
Keeping Up with Customers’ Increasingly Dynamic Needs
10/10/2022
A mere 20 years ago, a song typically stayed on the Billboard Top 100 charts for 20 weeks. Right now, it’s closer to two weeks. Similarly, the skillset that would once last your whole career now requires a complete refresh every three to five years. Corporate longevity is also rapidly changing: in 2020, the average […]
Global M&A market slows in 2022 first half–but shows signs of strength
07/10/2022
But the 2022 numbers match healthy, prepandemic levels and are especially notable in a time of great uncertainty. Geopolitical instability, spiking inflation, supply chain issues, skittish capital markets, regulatory changes—all these factors, and more, are fueling uncertainty. And as Andy West, global coleader of McKinsey’s M&A Practice, says, “Uncertainty always weighs on decision making, and […]
Is Your Board Inclusive — or Just Diverse?
06/10/2022
The need for boardroom diversity is well-established. Many European countries have mandated that at least 40% of directors of publicly listed companies must be women, and similar laws have been passed in several U.S. states establishing gender- or race-based quotas. And to be sure, these policies have led to substantial progress: For example, one report […]
Five key levers for significant impact
05/10/2022
Sustainability remains the number-one topic across the packaging value chain, with corporations setting ambitious targets to improve their performance. This is demonstrated by our recent global survey of packaging purchasers across industries, which shows that approximately 75 percent of organizations have made clear sustainable-packaging commitments—but fewer than 30 percent are well prepared to meet regional […]
Visualizing the Rise of Global Economic Uncertainty
04/10/2022
Over the last six years, companies have had to grapple with five major “uncertainty shocks”: First it was Brexit in 2016, followed by the U.S. presidential election, China-U.S. trade-tensions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and in 2022 the Ukraine war. These shocks reflect a new normal of greater global turbulence, driven by domestic and international political fragmentation. […]
Keeping Your Team Motivated When the Company Is Struggling
15/09/2022
It’s not surprising to learn that employee motivation is flagging these days. Fear of a slowing economy has layoffs up 39% in the second quarter of 2022, bringing the year’s total to more than 133,000. On top of that, the great resignation continues to lead employees to exit toxic workplaces characterized by uncaring leaders and […]
In Uncertain Times, the Best Strategy Is Adaptability
13/09/2022
Senior executives often lament, “If we only had better forecasts, we could devise better plans.” They pressure their teams to come up with more accurate projections for how their markets will evolve, competitors will respond, and consumers will react — thinking that forecast precision is the key to defining winning strategies. But attempting to develop […]
Resilient Organizations Make Psychological Safety a Strategic Priority
09/09/2022
The pandemic, geopolitical instability, and unpredictable markets have made organizational resilience like food in the desert: critical for survival, but challenging to grow. By making resilience a strategic priority, leaders ensure that their organizations can stretch and adapt. Much has been written about psychological safety’s role in improving workplace wellness and even in helping stem […]
Managing Shareholders in the Age of Stakeholder Capitalism
07/09/2022
In 2021, Danone’s board of directors, under pressure from activist Bluebell Capital and Artisan Partners, ousted the company’s CEO Emmanuel Faber — a longtime advocate of stakeholder capitalism. This decision puzzled many observers; in an age where the business community seems to be readily embracing stakeholder capitalism, Faber and Danone were stalwarts. Now Unilever — […]
The Inflation Factor: How Rising Food and Energy Prices Impact the Economy
06/09/2022
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the effects of energy supply disruptions are cascading across everything from food prices to electricity to consumer sentiment. In response to soaring prices, many OECD countries are tapping into their strategic petroleum reserves. In fact, since March, the U.S. has sold a record one million barrels of oil per day […]
Leading with Confidence in Uncertain Times
05/09/2022
Serena crunched all the numbers and made the best estimates possible when she was preparing the coming quarter’s sales projections for the product she managed. She used lessons from her graduate studies in statistics and decision science. Informed by historical trends, economic forecasts, and market projections, she estimated a total sales volume of 1,000 units. […]
Digital Transformation Is Changing Supply Chain Relationships
12/08/2022
The digital transformation of businesses is creating new products, processes, and services. But to provide these new offerings, companies must share information and assets with each other in ways that were previously off-limits. For example, digitized services may require competitors to share physical assets such as warehouse space. This, in turn, means that companies will […]
The Great Renegotiation and new talent pools
11/08/2022
It’s the quitting trend that just won’t quit. People are switching jobs and industries, moving from traditional to nontraditional roles, retiring early, or starting their own businesses. They are taking a time-out to tend to their personal lives or embarking on sabbaticals. The Great Attrition has become the Great Renegotiation. Competition for talent remains fierce. For […]
What Makes Innovation Partnerships Succeed
10/08/2022
Breakthrough innovation introduces novel paradigms and platforms, and it creates new product families and economic opportunities. But it’s never a solo act. Even the largest companies need partners. Innovation partnerships offer many advantages. They offset R&D costs, add expertise and flexibility, and help create new markets. They can also accelerate innovation and commercialization timelines — […]
The $100 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart
09/08/2022
Visualizing the $100 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart Surpassing the $100 trillion mark is a new milestone for global economic output. We’ve covered this topic in the past when the world’s GDP was $88 trillion (2020) and then $94 trillion (2021), and now according to the latest projections, the IMF expects the global economy […]
Organizational Transformation Is an Emotional Journey
08/08/2022
The road is littered with failed transformation programs that were set up in the traditional way: Leaders define objectives, design a project plan, agree on KPIs, and recruit the right people. As many executives, academics, and consultants can relate to, the rate of failure in transformations is still far too high, and one that organizations […]
Navigating regulatory uncertainty in packaging: A new wave of chemical-substance regulations
05/08/2022
New, stricter regulations on the use of certain chemicals in the packaging industry are emerging rapidly: restrictions on bisphenol A (BPA) in the European Union and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the United States being two of the most notable. With the recent release of the European Commission’s 2030 “Restrictions roadmap under the chemicals […]
How Greenwashing Affects the Bottom Line
04/08/2022
Consumers today face a barrage of green-friendly messaging from companies hoping to profit from increased concern over environmental issues. Unfortunately, many of these environmental promises don’t pan out. Research carried out in Europe found that 42% of green claims were exaggerated, false, or deceptive, which points to greenwashing on an industrial scale. This is dangerous […]
Ranked: The 20 Countries With the Fastest Declining Populations
03/08/2022
Visualizing Population Decline by Country Since the mid-1900s, the global population has followed a steep upwards trajectory. While much of this growth has been concentrated in China and India, researchers expect the next wave of growth to occur in Africa. As of 2019, for example, the average woman in Niger is having over six children […]
How Leaders Can Escape Their Echo Chambers
02/08/2022
The higher leaders go, the more likely they are to find themselves in an echo chamber, surrounded by people who think like them and agree with them. This occurs partly because of the affinity bias, which leads us to favor, associate with, and hire the people to whom we feel most similar. This dearth of […]
The power of the operating model in customer experience
22/07/2022
Transforming the customer experience (CX) isn’t about playing hard and fast. To succeed in the long game, companies need to manage it systematically. Doing it well is a game changer, which is why more than 70 percent of senior executives rank CX as a top priority for the coming years. Indeed, companies that effectively organize […]
When — and How — to Build Hurdles into a Loyalty Program
21/07/2022
Have you ever signed up for a rewards program, only to discover several months later that your points expired before you had a chance to use them? If so, you’re not alone. Research shows that loyalty program members lose up to a third of the savings they could have earned from these programs due to […]
Interest Rate Hikes vs. Inflation Rate, by Country
20/07/2022
Interest Rate Hikes vs. Inflation Rate, by Country Imagine today’s high inflation like a car speeding down a hill. In order to slow it down, you need to hit the brakes. In this case, the “brakes” are interest rate hikes intended to slow spending. However, some central banks are hitting the brakes faster than others. […]
Does Your Strategy Have a Spine?
19/07/2022
For all the ink spilled on the concept of strategy, it continually proves to be a surprisingly slippery idea. In practice, leaders often struggle to define and communicate strategies to their team. In their 2008 article, “Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?” David Collis and Michael Rukstad don’t mince words: “Most executives cannot articulate […]
Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint
18/07/2022
Do you, as a leader, make an explicit choice to grow? Or do you pay lip service to your growth ambitions and let your resolve falter if profit isn’t immediate? When sustainable, inclusive, and profitable growth becomes a conscious, resolute choice, it shapes decision making across every area of the business. Growth becomes the oxygen […]
Adjusting Your Strategy in a Tight Market
15/07/2022
During the past two decades, corporate scope and priorities were shaped by an abundance of capital. Today the univested capital of private equity funds stands at an all-time staggering high of $3.4 trillion. With such massive liquidity chasing few opportunities, valuations for innovative investments have been high. The prevailing low interest rate environment has only reinforced […]
5 Megatrends Fueling the Rise of Data Storytelling
14/07/2022
Infographic: The Rise of Data Storytelling Humanity is creating more data than ever before, and more of that data is publicly accessible. While “data is the new oil” has almost become a cliché, the impact that data abundance is having on the world is undeniable. All of the world’s most valuable companies are heavily reliant […]
The Pandemic Changed Us. Now Companies Have to Change Too.
13/07/2022
It may sound obvious, but facing our collective mortality for the last two years changed us. Of course, many of us had confronted big challenges in our pre-pandemic lives, but this shared experience was uniquely difficult. One area of our lives that was dramatically altered was our collective perspective related to work. Working under the […]
Customer service excellence in 2022
12/07/2022
The stakes couldn’t be higher as teams try to adapt to a postpandemic era of customer care. Over the past two years, leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home—up to 85 percent of their workforces, in some cases. Contact center employees are harder […]
Your Corporate Purpose Changed. Has Your Strategy Kept Up?
11/07/2022
The key question for leaders tasked with setting corporate strategy is, “What is this company’s ultimate purpose?” Fortunately, the basic approach to answering that question has been clearly articulated by the U.S. Business Roundtable. In August 2019 it issued the “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” signed by 181 CEOs from Apple to Walmart. […]
Why AI Customer Journeys Need More Friction
01/07/2022
In marketing circles, friction has become synonymous with “pain point.” Eradicating it, conventional wisdom goes, is crucial to building a customer-centric strategy that yields competitive advantage. Taking a cue from policy applications of behavioral economics, marketers seek to “nudge” people along the customer journey and remove friction in the battle against “sludge.” At many firms, […]
Future supply chains: resilience, agility, sustainability
30/06/2022
Supply chains matter. The plumbing of global commerce has rarely been a topic of much discussion in newsrooms or boardrooms, but the past two years have pushed the subject to the top of the agenda. The COVID-19 crisis, postpandemic economic effects, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities of today’s global supply chains. […]
Visualizing the Coming Shift in Global Economic Power (2006-2036p)
28/06/2022
Visualizing the Shift in Global Economic Power As the post-pandemic recovery chugs along, the global economy is set to see major changes in the coming decades. Most significantly, China is forecast to pass the United States to become the largest economy globally. The world’s economic center has long been drifting from Europe and North America […]
Will Your Competitive Advantage Work in Other Markets?
27/06/2022
When building a business, the critical first step is to develop a strategy that resonates with your market. But once you’ve crafted that winning strategy, what does it take to successfully translate it into new markets? When companies expand overseas, they often assume the competitive advantages that have made them successful in their home countries […]
How to Make Strategic Trade-Offs
24/06/2022
When CEOs lay out multiple high-level objectives, like increasing market share, entering new markets, and pursuing innovation — all at the same time — they enthusiastically tout the advantages of each. They set ambitious numerical targets. They rally the troops behind the vision. But they rarely talk explicitly about how much value they are willing […]
Capture a digital transformation’s value today
23/06/2022
While some of the obstacles to digital-transformation success are well known, McKinsey Global Survey on digital strategy and investments asked business leaders about the evolution of these challenges, digital tech’s role in their businesses, and companies’ strategic responses. 2 2. The online survey was in the field from January 25 to February 4, 2022, and garnered […]
Using Fiction to Find Your Strategy
22/06/2022
Trying to predict what the future will look like is doomed to fail. Yet this is what most executives do when they strategize. They — we — do this because we have been trained and educated to use trends and statistics to predict what is likely to happen and prepare accordingly. As a result, companies […]
CEOs, Here’s How to Lead in an Era of Constant Change
22/06/2022
Every year I have the privilege to meet with many CEOs and leadership teams to discuss their business. In the past year, nearly every leadership team I’ve sat down with is grappling with the need to make changes and drive transformation. Inflation, geopolitics, supply-chain issues, labour costs, divisiveness, unsettled equity markets, and stakeholder expectations seem […]
Mapping the Migration of the World’s Millionaires
21/06/2022
Mapping the Migration of the World’s Millionaires Throughout 2022, a projected 88,000 millionaires will move to a new country, according to the latest Henley Global Citizens Report. Which countries are these millionaires moving to, and where in the world are they coming from? This graphic maps the migration of high net worth individuals (HNWIs)—people with […]
What Leaders Get Wrong About Resilience
20/06/2022
Resilience, or the continued pursuit of goals despite adversity, is an important issue for organizations, because adversity is inevitable in people’s lives and careers. We all face personal adversities, ranging from the daily stresses of balancing work and home roles to experiences of job loss or the death of a loved one, as well as […]
4 Steps to Creating a Strategy in an Uncertain World
16/06/2022
It hardly needs to be said, but we live in uncertain times. The Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the reshuffling of supply chains and capital structures — the past few years have seen unprecedented disruptions, and the turmoil shows little sign of letting up any time soon. Challenges abound, and companies are finding it […]
Driving sustainable, enterprise-wide performance acceleration
15/06/2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruptor of historic proportions across industries, economies, and lives. In the global pharmaceutical industry, it has caused problems in short-term cash flow and threatened supply reliability. But even before the pandemic, the industry had been facing several hurdles, including the declining value of new launches, challenges to growth in […]
What To Do When the Devil Wears (Your Brand)
14/06/2022
Protecting a brand’s equity and value should be one of an executive’s key responsibilities. Companies buy protection software and use blacklists to stop questionable publishers and endorsers from negatively portraying their brand, for example. But what happens when the brand is displayed unfavorably in an environment that the marketer can’t control? This is exactly what […]
What Leaders Need to Know Before Trying a 4-Day Work Week
10/06/2022
Despite the gains workers have made through the Covid pandemic in increasing flexibility in where they work, bigger workloads have meant that there is little slack in the system for people to take time out and recover. The effects are obvious. In 2020, 62% of people reported that they had experienced burnout “often” or “extremely […]
The Data Storytelling Toolbox: Data Management, Digital Transformation, and Master Data
09/06/2022
Scott Taylor believes in data storytelling. More to the point, he believes that telling a “data story” leads to Data Governance success. Taylor is a consultant and “Data Whisperer” at MetaMeta Consulting, and author of the book, Telling Your Data Story. In his presentation “Data Storytelling for Data Management” at DATAVERSITY®’s Enterprise Data World Conference, […]
What Leadership Development Should Look Like in the Hybrid Era
08/06/2022
As organizations and individuals around the world settle into a blend of in-person and virtual work, we’re learning more about the opportunities and risks hybrid brings. One key concern is leadership development. We know that some of the vital ways in which executives learn on the job — such as serendipitous interactions and informal feedback […]
Which Countries Trust Their Government, and Which Ones Don’t?
07/06/2022
Which Countries Trust Their Government, and Which Ones Don’t? In many countries around the world, vast portions of the population do not trust their own government. Lack of faith in government and politics is nothing new, but in times of uncertainty, that lack of trust can coalesce into movements that challenge the authority of ruling […]
Ensure that Your Joint Ventures Meet Your ESG Goals
06/06/2022
Companies are under intense pressure to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. To date, the lion’s share of management scrutiny and investor activism has focused on wholly-owned or controlled entities. But this worldview contains a sizable blind spot. Many companies hold large and growing portfolios of joint ventures, many of which are equally-owned […]
Flexible work and the innovative organization
06/06/2022
Despite the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—and partly because of it—innovation and digitization have been happening at a record-breaking pace. A McKinsey survey of top executives around the world found that companies accelerated their digitization of customer, supply chain, and internal operations by an average of three years. Indeed, over the past two years, countries […]