The McKinsey Quarterly

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featured Operations article, path to successful new products

JANUARY 2010

The path to successful new products

Businesses with the best product-development track records stand apart from their less-successful peers in three crucial ways.

JANUARY 2010

Using knowledge brokering to improve business processes

New applications of open-innovation principles allow progressive companies to enhance not only their products but also their core internal business processes.

Includes:
OCTOBER 2009

Risk: Seeing around the corners

Risk-assessment processes typically expose only the most direct threats facing a company and neglect indirect ones that can have an equal or greater impact.
JANUARY 2010

A hospital-wide strategy for fixing emergency-department overcrowding

A sustained reduction of emergency-department wait times requires not only an end-to-end transformation of multiple hospital processes but also a change in hospital culture, stronger staff skills, better performance management, and visible leadership.
SEPTEMBER 2009

Taming demand variability in back-office services

Managers in many back-office processing environments can make them more flexible and remove waste by organizing transactions or activities according to their variability.
SEPTEMBER 2009

How to optimize knowledge sharing in a factory network

Designing a manufacturing network entails devising and managing flows of innovation and know-how—not just determining what to produce and where—and organizing the resulting logistics flows.
JULY 2009

Squeezing more ideas from product teardowns

Some companies are using product teardowns to dismantle silo culture in product development.

Includes:
JULY 2009

When to divest support services

Some companies can reduce the cost of support services, improve their quality, and raise cash to invest elsewhere. Here’s how to tell if your company is one of them.
APRIL 2009

Reducing risk in your manufacturing footprint

Flexibility within and among locations can help companies respond to changing conditions.

Interactive video

As the country merges into the world economy, best practice in China will become best practice globally, products developed in China will become global products, and industrial processes developed in China will become global processes. This article includes a video interview with Jimmy Hexter, co-author of Operation China, discussing opportunities in manufacturing and sourcing.

NOVEMBER 2007

Bringing best practice to China

Includes:

JANUARY 2010

What worked in cost cutting—and what’s next: McKinsey Global Survey results

Companies were able to cut costs effectively through the crisis, executives say, but they’re less confident of their ability to contain or continue to cut them. Some companies are positioning themselves for longer-term success by planning the next round more strategically.
APRIL 2009

R&D in the downturn: McKinsey Global Survey Results

Despite the economic downturn, many companies are reluctant to cut R&D activities, viewing them as a source of competitive advantage. Companies that gain the greatest benefit from R&D are actually expanding their programs.
MARCH 2009

Building a flexible supply chain for uncertain times

The “bullwhip effect” means that distortions in data cascade through a company’s suppliers. Businesses must remain flexible to protect themselves.
FEBRUARY 2009

Upgrading R&D in a downturn

Cutting research costs across the board in a recession isn’t smart. Companies should use R&D as an opportunity to make themselves more competitive.
DECEMBER 2008

Freeing up cash from operations

As the economy slows, companies should avoid the impulse to batten down their operations indiscriminately. Taking short-term steps and a balanced view of operations can keep cash flows healthy.

JANUARY 2010

Why don’t back-office efficiency drives stick?

A granular look at back-office operations shows why across-the-board cuts make no sense.
AUGUST 2009

When citizens are your customers

Optimization techniques using noncontroversial metrics such as customer satisfaction can help government agencies improve their service levels.
FEBRUARY 2009

Management practices that drive supply chain success

The results of in-depth interviews with operations executives represent major implications for companies in high tech, manufacturing and assembly, packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, and retailing.
OCTOBER 2008

A fresh wind for offshoring infrastructure management

A laggard so far, it may be about to take off.
JUNE 2007

How to build top-performing auto dealerships

Automakers and dealers should learn to collaborate more. Both parties would benefit.
MARCH 2007

Developing Mexico's offshoring opportunity

To take advantage of the growing global market for offshored services, the country must do more to improve the suitability of its workforce.
FEBRUARY 2007

The talent factor in purchasing

Better purchasing can be beneficial in surprising ways, some far removed from purchasing itself.