The Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Tuesday in response to concerns about the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the US economy. Meantime, professional services firms have been weighing in on the implications of the COVID-19 crisis on global business, including supply-chain risks.
This special edition of the
Gold Standard highlights what many of these firms have published in the past few weeks.
Innovation for
sustainability:
Solving the plastics and
packaging challenge
PA Consulting
Tracking the trends 2019:
The top 10 issues
transforming the future
of mining
Deloitte
“
Insurtechs on the rise”
Bain
Securing software as a
service”
McKinsey
“
Paying for value in
health care
BCG
Featured themes
“
“
Managing supply-chain risks is a perennial topic for professional services firms. I would expect to see many more COVID-19-related pieces published on this topic in the coming weeks.
“Coronavirus and other shocks: How resilient is your supply chain?,”
Bain & Company
“Coronavirus and the impact on global supply chains,”
Kearney
“Coronavirus: Unmasking a supply chain flaw,”
Korn Ferry
“Coronavirus is rupturing global supply chains,”
Oliver Wyman
Firms published the following pieces on supply-chain risks just as COVID-19 began spreading. They were timely, indeed:
“Supply chain risk management is back,”
McKinsey & Company
“Supply chain risks are magnifying in an uncertain world,”
Marsh & McLennan and Oliver Wyman
Read the report
Supply-chain issues
Read the report
Artificial intelligence
Winners: McKinsey, Capgemini, PwC
This author team from Deloitte takes an unusually detailed look at the digital shortcomings of the workforce and what companies can do to help their workers thrive in a digital world.
The emergence of business ecosystems was well chronicled this year. What most pieces failed to do was clearly define what an ecosystem is and detail its pros and cons. BCG’s Henderson Institute does such a good job explaining the ecosystem model in this piece that you don’t have to bother reading anything else on the subject to understand what’s going on.
Nearly every article about digital transformation bemoans the scarcity of talent in the data and analytics field. These
authors from the executive search firm
Spencer Stuart discuss how to identify and hire these increasingly important employees.
Read the article
Data and analytics and digital or organizational transformation
Winners: Deloitte, BCG Henderson Institute,
Spencer Stuart
“
All professional services firms weighed in on some aspect of diversity and inclusion this year. Authors at the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles distinguished themselves by addressing the topic from the point of view of Asia–Pacific companies.
Read the article
Diversity and inclusion
Winner: Heidrick & Struggles
“
These McKinsey authors carried out a detailed global survey of consumers on their attitudes about EVs and sent mystery shoppers to dealerships to observe the sales process. The report is filled with prescriptive advice for automakers.
Read the report
Read the report
The road ahead
for e-mobility
McKinsey & Company
Back to top
Supply-chain issues
Navigating uncharted waters: A roadmap to responsible innovation with AI in financial services
Technology, media, and
telecommunications
predictions 2020
BCG
Ready or not, AI Is coming to IT operations”
Capgemini
Scaling AI in manufacturing operations: A practitioners’ perspective
Leadership during the COVID-19 crisis
Geographical focus: China and the crisis
Cyber risks
Addressing the business impact of the crisis
Leadership during the COVID-19 crisis
Executive search firms are offering counsel on how executives should manage their companies during the outbreak.
“Leading through the coronavirus crisis,”
Egon Zehnder
“Leadership in an outbreak,”
Korn Ferry
Bain & Company has published several pieces specifically on
COVID-19 and its impact on China.
The following article looks at how the epidemic will affect Chinese retailers. The authors review how retailing held up during the SARS epidemic in China in 2003; the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011; and the MERS epidemic in South Korea in 2015.
“China’s retailers and the coronavirus outbreak: Lessons from the past”
This piece discusses how the SARS epidemic affected the Chinese economy and offers brief recommendations on what companies should do now.
“Beyond the coronavirus crisis: Prepare now”
These infographics look at how the epidemic is spurring the use of digital healthcare in China as well as the outbreak’s impact on Chinese consumer goods companies.
“As the coronavirus spreads, healthcare goes digital”
“Coronavirus pushes China’s consumer goods makers further online”
Geographical focus: China and the crisis
Many people around the world will be working remotely in the coming weeks. This piece takes an interesting angle, looking
at working-from-home cyber risk and how companies can
protect themselves.
“Cyber risk implications of the coronavirus outbreak,”
Aon
Cyber risks
These are mostly broader pieces on the business implications of the crisis. BCG’s article seems particularly useful for executives.
“Lead your business through the coronavirus crisis,”
BCG
“The coronavirus’s impact on pay,”
Korn Ferry
“This is the impact of the coronavirus on business,”
Marsh & McLennan
“COVID-19: Implications for business,”
McKinsey & Company
“COVID-19: Confidently navigate through the coronavirus crisis,”
PwC
“Responding to the potential business impacts of COVID-19,”
PwC
Addressing the business impact of the crisis
Supply-chain issues
Leadership during the COVID-19 crisis
Geographical focus: China and the crisis
Cyber risks
Addressing the business impact of the crisis
We saw a lot of smart writing on the risks associated with AI this year. This piece
from McKinsey is one of the most sophisticated that I read.
Professional services firms are also starting to get into the specific uses of AI. That’s what authors from Capgemini do in
a report on AI and cybersecurity, another one of the most critical topics in business and society. The authors set aside the hype and examine how AI can best be employed in cybersecurity. In a similar vein, authors from PwC look at the ways AI could change how CFOs do their jobs.