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December 2008
Senior corporate leaders and tech executives want IT to better serve business strategy, but current performance still falls short, our third annual survey reveals.
Many IT organizations will reduce their spending in 2009. A strong management focus can mitigate the pain—and create opportunities.
Distributors may hold the key to high-tech sales growth in many markets.
November 2008
The demand for data center capacity worldwide has led to a sharp rise in IT costs and a steady increase in carbon emissions. A new efficiency metric provides companies with a clear yardstick for measuring progress.
October 2008
A laggard so far, it may be about to take off.
Information and communications technologies will become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions but can abate far more of them.
September 2008
How the Internet will change the nature of competition, innovation, and company operations.
Looking to slash your IT investments? Consider the possibility that targeted ones might generate savings and revenues exceeding what you could save through cost cutting.
July 2008
David Fisher talks about his experiences after he went from the private sector to the biggest organization in the US government.
Companies are using more Web 2.0 tools and technologies than they were last year, sometimes for more complex business purposes, according to McKinsey’s second annual survey on Web 2.0. Companies that are satisfied with their use of these tools are starting to see changes throughout the enterprise.
Filippo Passerini is bringing the back office into the boardroom.
June 2008
To keep pace with a rapidly growing company, CIO Marina Levinson must choose her priorities carefully.
As the information storage needs of many large enterprises grow and become more complex, IT executives must have better policies to guide their efforts.
May 2008
China faces major challenges to becoming a global giant in the offshoring and outsourcing of services.
January 2008
The company’s chairman and former CEO explains the power of the participatory, open-source model of collaboration.
September 2007
The founder and chairman of Satyam details the philosophy that has underpinned the company’s rapid ascent through the ranks of the world’s top IT services providers.
July 2007
McKinsey research shows that the IT investments of banks are most fruitful when they match technology strategy with business strategy, implement systems in a disciplined way, and balance value creation with increased IT capabilities.
June 2007
Merrill Lynch has combined operations with IT in a single unit. Diane Schueneman, the head of the company’s Global Infrastructure Solutions, explains how she is changing both to focus on the customer.
May 2007
To make application development and maintenance more productive, IT managers are getting lean.
To go on growing, these institutions must raise their productivity by streamlining the back office.
IT executives say that they are now helping to shape business strategy but need to improve their ability to tap innovation.
March 2007
Information technology is so crucial for the success of India’s top private bank that K. V. Kamath says he oversees it himself.
January 2007
Tom Sanzone explains how his broad authority within the company helps keep IT aligned with the business strategy.
CIOs are focusing their plans on more flexible architectures and more efficient data centers.
December 2006
Banks and brokerages frequently can reduce operating costs by adopting one or two performance improvement measures. Bigger rewards await those that can conceptualize a broader redesign.
Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are more likely to succeed at banks that have a robust and flexible operating model.
Companies that seek to outsource their IT and business processes seldom head for the region—but soon more of them will.
September 2006
Volkswagen chief information officer, Klaus Hardy Mühleck, has championed the CIO's role as the arbiter of business process and enablement.
Companies must govern IT as they govern their businesses: with different rules and metrics for different parts of the organization.
Dividing IT into demand and supply organizations helps companies realize the full potential of their IT investments.
August 2006
Just as a company manages different businesses differently, it should manage the IT that supports them differently.
July 2006
A new methodology for measuring the performance of remote providers shows that while clients are mostly satisfied, there is significant room for improvement.
Although late to offshoring, pharma companies stand to benefit at least as much as those in other industries.
June 2006
The offshoring of IT infrastructure—machines and networks and the people who manage them—has been relatively slow to develop. But this is changing as leaders show how to offshore it effectively and vendors step up to meet a growing opportunity.
May 2006
CIOs increasingly want just "one throat to choke" when it comes to IT and telecom services. So far, the providers haven't stuck out their necks.
Stephen McGuckin explains how the company consolidated its IT operations and developed a unique model for outsourcing and offshoring.
Romi Malhotra shares insights on recruitment, retention, and developing talent.
Offshoring becomes a powerful tool for business transformation once companies combine labor cost savings with other productivity and revenue-generating levers.
March 2006
Outsourcing parts of the supply chain has disrupted the flow of critical data. Targeted IT investments can restore what's missing.
February 2006
Chief information officers plan to keep operating costs low to spend more on ERP upgrades, servers, and security.
January 2006
Those that get the most value from information technology might be the ones that spend the least on it.
Pharma's health will depend on a dose of IT to improve efficiency and innovation.
IT organizations can minimize the risks of customer-facing projects by adopting the approach of software product companies.
September 2005
As competition intensifies, the industry must go global.
August 2005
Many business managers don't understand IT costs, but explaining them can help forge a true partnership between IT and the business.
A survey uncovers shared perspectives on the challenges now facing companies, but IT execs must still sell tech innovation to business leaders.
Companies that rely on IT governance systems alone will come up short.
June 2005
Low costs aren't everything—particularly for critical systems.
May 2005
Allan Loren explains how he delivered double-digit earnings growth during each of the past four years and raised the company's value by more than 300 percent.
February 2005
Shaygan Kheradpir talks about where IT fits into convergence, innovation, and cost cutting.
The days of building to order are over. The time is ripe for an industrial revolution.
October 2004
Lessons from the IT-heavy banking sector can bring balance to this critical task.
July 2004
IT customers are buying again, but not as extravagantly as they did during the boom. Tech companies must adapt to ensure their long-term survival.
To ensure that IT investments have the greatest impact, CIOs must involve business-unit leaders and concentrate on the big picture.
The second McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives finds that corporate leaders are still confident—especially about hiring, IT spending, China, and India—though they’ve tempered their earlier enthusiasm.
December 2003
The cofounder and chairman of one of India’s premier technology companies argues that it has a sustainable competitive advantage.
November 2003
IT’s critics say that it lacks strategic importance. So why does technology keep getting in the way of good strategy?
Two senior J. P. Morgan Chase executives explain how a worldwide team set the stage for transforming the merged firm’s IT organization.
August 2003
Systems powered by the Extensible Markup Language might someday prove to be the standard for information sharing between businesses, but not in the near future.
Executives in France are taking a more proactive approach to ensure their IT investments bear fruit.
May 2003
Companies that invest in secure, centralized locations for servers can save considerable sums of money.
Smart IT investing doesn’t require a return to the spendthrift ways of the late 1990s.
IT procurement must be a capability, not a mere exercise in cutting deals.
Companies can run their IT systems more efficiently by creating new organizational structures in which IT departments and business units share responsibility.
After a hard fall, providers of IT services face demands for more value—at lower prices.
February 2003
To simplify a company’s information systems, look beyond them.
All three drivers of productivity—innovation, demand, and consolidation—must be exploited to achieve the full benefit of each.
Continued consolidation is needed but won’t be enough—only IT-enabled innovation can help road freight companies enjoy productivity growth rates like those of the late ‘90s.
A study of early adopters of supply-chain-management software shows that it works best where it is needed most—but is no use as a bandage over flawed processes.