Given that technology has been a core part of McKinsey’s work for decades, we can confidently say that from all of our experience, the businesses that embrace digital are the ones that will thrive. This holds true for us as well. As we continue to evolve in the digital age of lightning-speed change, we’re expanding in new and unexpected (for some) directions and experimenting with new ideas. Here is a sample of what we’ve been up to recently.
1. WE HIRE DESIGNERS, CODERS, AND DATA ENGINEERS
To keep up with the changing needs of our clients, we are making changes of our own. And so we’re bringing in more people with varied—and perhaps unexpected— types of backgrounds (like this one) and skills, across six continents.
Over 1,500 designers, coders, data engineers, developers, agile coaches, business consultants, and others are currently part of Digital McKinsey. They come from some of the world’s leading tech companies, creative agencies, and start-ups, as well as through acquisitions—such as design agency Carbon12 from last fall.
Explore the types of roles we have here.
2. WE’RE COACHING AS WE GO
Beyond helping clients conceive of ideas for inventive products, services, and experiences, we’re working side-by-side with them to not only design and build but also improve their processes and capabilities. That way, they can keep innovating even after we are gone. Being digital means being agile, using prototypes as a problem-solving tool, and building a culture around experimentation.
A few recent examples of our work include:
Digitizing a fast-food chain
We launched an entirely new food-delivery app and website, recruited top digital talent to build a new digital unit from scratch, and created a standalone digital center of excellence that continues to iterate and innovate on its own today and is now the model for other markets to follow.
Launching a new mobile-banking app
In just 16 weeks, we launched a new app that lets users send money to friends. Within a month of its release, it reached the number-one spot in the local Apple App Store and performed tens of thousands of transactions.
Using robotics to process life insurance
The users we work with aren’t just consumers; they can be employees too. After analyzing the experiences of teams at a life insurance company, we built a robotic-process-automation tool that automated numerous activities. It freed up employees’ time for other work, dropped policy conversion time by 50 percent, and lowered processing costs by more than 80 percent.
3. WE’VE GOT EIGHT NEW ADDRESSES
Part of being digital means actually experiencing digital. Brainstorming great ideas and developing a strategy are a start, but the user experience is critical. That’s why we believe our teams and our clients need to be immersed in it—to touch, feel, and experience new technologies. In Berlin, Toronto, New York, Singapore, Aachen, Chicago, Venice and Beijing, we’ve opened new spaces for clients to do just that. They include:
Experience Studios
Spaces for clients to interact with cutting-edge technologies, learn from leading tech companies, and network with potential partners.
Visit us here.
Digital Capability Centers
A network of factories for participants to experiment with Industry 4.0 technologies to understand first-hand how they can reshape manufacturing and operations.
And here!
4. WE’RE AT THE CENTER OF A GLOBAL NETWORK OF LEADING TECH COMPANIES
To help clients quickly scale up, we’ve expanded our ecosystem of partners with over 150 leading technology-related product and service providers. They’re helping to bring new ideas, innovations, and capabilities to our clients—and we are working side-by-side with their top experts to do so. Plus, we’re continuing to build out our own technology library with in-house offerings like microservices, a cloud platform, sector-specific platforms, and more. Having the best-in-class technology and expertise as part of our network help our clients test and go to market faster than ever before.
5. WE’RE TAKING OUR IDEAS ON THE ROAD
From Cannes to Paris, from Lisbon to Barcelona, from Hong Kong to Bengaluru, and from Austin to Davos—we’re out on the tradeshow circuit shaping the conversation on cutting-edge topics, like artificial intelligence, robotics, creativity, and design.
To name just a few:
- Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Cannes, France
- VivaTech, Paris, France
- WSJ D.Live Asia, Hong Kong
- Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal
- Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain
- South by Southwest, Austin, USA
- World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland
- JSChannel Conference, Bengaluru, India
Above, Jason Heller, Digital McKinsey partner, presented at last month’s Cannes Lions Festival our work in establishing a link between creativity and business performance. Our methodology? We developed an index coined the Award Creativity Score (ACS) that is based on 16 years of data from the Cannes Lions awards, given annually for advertising and marketing excellence. The analysis revealed creativity is in fact associated with superior performance. Businesses that scored higher on the index all share a dedicated focus on innovation and creativity, customer centricity, speed, and adaptability.
Read more here.
Interested to see what else Digital McKinsey is up to? Explore here.