The region’s future prosperity depends on its youth. Governments must ensure that young people have the right skills for the jobs being created. The Arab world is experiencing unprecedented turmoil. Any evaluation of its root causes would include unemployment for youth between the ages of 15 and 24. More than 25 percent of youth in the […]

Women continue to be underrepresented at senior-management levels in Asia, Europe, and North America. McKinsey research suggests some answers. The progress of women toward the upper echelons of business, government, and academia continues to provoke media attention and lively debate. Look, for instance, at the coverage of Marissa Mayer’s July appointment as CEO of Yahoo! and

The year ahead could be a time of significant change for everything from banks, retailers, and infrastructure projects to pork prices, soccer, and “compulsory” vacation time. How might China surprise us in 2013? Read the ten predictions of Gordon Orr, a McKinsey director based in Shanghai, and tell us what you would add. 1. Banks

IT and business executives need to apply a risk-management approach that balances economic value against risks. The use of highly scaled, shared, and automated IT platforms—known as cloud computing—is growing rapidly. Adopters are driven by the prospects of increasing agility and gaining access to more computing resources for less money. Large institutions are building and managing

The single-largest business opportunity in Africa will be its rising consumer market. A McKinsey report, one of the first of its kind, offers a detailed profile of African consumers, including their demographics, behavior, and needs. By now, most investors and businesses know about the tremendous potential of Africa—the world’s second-fastest-growing region, topped only by emerging Asia.

To get products to customers in emerging markets, global manufacturers need strategies for navigating both the traditional and the modern retail landscapes. In emerging markets the world over, multinationals struggling to get their products to consumers confront a bewildering kaleidoscope of strategic and operational challenges. At one extreme, they must grapple with traditional retailers: the chaotic

Companies whose social investments focus on women in developing economies help not only the recipients but also themselves. Few companies make social investments specifically aimed at empowering women in developing economies, but we believe that supporting this goal is good business and good practice for all companies. In the course of our work, we’ve uncovered a startlingly

A rebound signals opportunity—and a need for flexibility as the market evolves. While the private-equity business remains in the doldrums in much of the world, the Asia–Pacific region stands out as an exception. A recent McKinsey report, Private equity Asia–Pacific: Is the boom back?, shows that in 2011, Asia was the world’s only major region where these

The CEO of a global staffing firm and a Nobel laureate economist discuss the changing face of US employment and the obstacles to job creation. The US economy has lost seven million jobs since 2007 and remains in the grip of a weak and largely jobless recovery that could take five more years to restore prerecession

Montreal’s M0851 leather goods stores uses its own cultivated identity to sell its ‘slow fashions’ Frédéric Mamarbachi, founder and creator of the brand M0851, is as excited as a kid in an ice cream store when he looks at three-dimensional renderings for his next leather-goods store on a computer screen. With a glass façade, black walls

About one-third of early buyers in Japan say their next car may not be an electric vehicle. Companies should heed their complaints. If electric vehicles (EVs) are to develop from a niche into a mass market, car makers should learn from early adopters who say they may not buy one again. Our recent research on such consumers in

Printed with permission from McKinsey Global Institute. Competition for talent in emerging markets is heating up. Global companies should groom local highfliers—and actively encourage more managers to leave home. Global organizations appear to be well armed in the war for talent. They can tap sources of suitably qualified people around the world and attract them

A poor response can be far more damaging than the attack itself. “Can it happen to us?” All over the world, technology executives have been fielding this question from boards of directors and CEOs in the wake of highly publicized cyberattacks on large, well-respected companies and public institutions. “Yes” is the only honest answer at a

Australia has been riding the wave of Asia’s economic growth, supplying coal, iron ore, and minerals to meet unprecedented demand in China and other emerging markets. As commodity prices spiked in recent years, the country has attracted a flood of investment into its mines, processing plants, pipelines, and ports. More money has been invested in

Foreign economic collection and industrial espionage against the United States represent significant and growing
threats to the nation’s prosperity and security. Cyberspace—where most business activity and development of
new ideas now takes place—amplifies these threats by making it possible for malicious actors, whether they are
corrupted insiders or foreign intelligence services (FIS), to quickly steal and transfer massive quantities of data
while remaining anonymous and hard to detect.