Most executives we know have a powerful, intuitive feel for the rhythm of their businesses. They know how hard and fast to pull strategic levers, move their organization, and drive execution to achieve their objectives. Or at least they did. Digitization has intensified the rhythm of competition in many industries, leaving executives adrift, with information-gathering systems that are too slow or disconnected, direction-setting approaches that are too timid, and talent-management norms that are misaligned and incremental.
These leaders know their companies must adjust and accelerate. Digital is putting pressure on profit pools as it transfers an increasing share of value to consumers. Furthermore, those profit pools are bleeding across traditional industry lines as advanced technologies enable companies to forge into adjacencies, changing who in the value chain is making money, what share of the pie they capture, and how. The slow and inefficient are left behind, competing for scraps.
What is unclear to these executives, however, is how much and how fast to adapt their business rhythms. The exhortation to “change at the speed of digital” generates more anxiety than answers. We have recently completed some research that provides clear guidance: digital leaders appear to keep up a drumbeat in their businesses that can be four times faster, and twice as powerful, as those of their peers.
In earlier studies, we identified 11 strategic and operational practices that are tightly correlated with the successful execution of digital efforts. More recently, we asked more than 1,500 executives how frequently their companies carry out these 11 practices. The responses of the best-performing companies—those in the top decile for organic revenue growth—suggest that the accelerated repetition of certain critical practices is closely associated with adaptive cultures that are comfortable with change, learning all the time, and swiftly responsive.
> Read the full article on the McKinsey website
By Jacques Bughin, Tanguy Catlin, and Laura LaBerge
Source: McKinsey
Consumer-goods companies are setting ambitious sustainability targets for themselves. To reach those targets, however, changes are required along the entire value chain—with a concrete road map.
The level of volatility will not slow down in 2022. New Covid variants will continue to emerge and may cause workplaces to temporarily go remote again. Hybrid work will create more unevenness around how much different employees are working. Many will have real wage cuts as annual compensation increases fall behind inflation. All these will be layered on top of technological transformation, DE&I journeys, and ongoing political disruption and uncertainty.
1 January may seem like an arbitrary date to start self-improvement, but there are good psychological reasons for doing so. For those who don’t follow this tradition, the very act of creating a New Year’s resolution can seem illogical. Recent psychological research, however, suggests that there are many good reasons to begin a new regime on the first day of a new year. And by understanding and capitalising on those mechanisms, we can all increase our chances of sticking to our new goals for 2022.
