Our Latest Thinking on Operations

Realizing value at scale requires a sharp focus on people and processes, even more so than on the technology backbone and algorithms.

Advanced manufacturers lead their peers across six key attributes, particularly in embedding AI into their operations. This is the factory of the future.

Companies that transform their supply chain for digitization, resilience, and sustainability while optimizing costs will create a powerful source of innovation and competitive advantage.

To support their company’s strategic decisions, procurement leaders should monitor a wide variety of trends that affect supply availability and costs.

With parallels to the complexities of building a house, BCG’s approach to transforming a supply chain emphasizes the importance of coordination, digital enablement, and speed.

The root cause of the problem lies not with technology but with how and where companies are applying it.

Costs are threatening the ability of process companies to take advantage of both organic and inorganic growth opportunities because of expanding financial constraints.

The brewer launched a supply chain transformation program to reduce complexity, build new ways of working, and reduce its carbon footprint. Here’s how it succeeded.

As the global business landscape grows more complex and politically fraught, companies are struggling to balance cost reduction, supply chain resilience, and access to key markets.

Companies can use a category-specific analysis to identify the best alternatives to conventional sourcing strategies.

Collaboration and digital technology are the keys to overcoming the main challenges of supply chain risk management.

By adhering to a simple six-step process, business can systematically manage ESG risks in global supply chains. Doing so will also embed ESG into the heart of operating models.

Trade disruptions have prompted many global companies to shift where they produce and source goods. But getting the desired results requires a difficult balancing act.

Amid shifting dynamics, transforming the global footprint can improve companies’ resilience and sustainability and cut manufacturing and supply chain costs. How are successful companies doing it?

By applying levers that reduce both carbon emissions and costs, industrial companies can generate savings to invest in further decarbonization initiatives.

Eventually, once the circular value chain is mature and optimized, secondary materials will cost less than primary materials.

Customer service organizations will not achieve their ambitious goals for generative AI – in terms of quality and efficiency – unless they transform their operating model.

Reaching a higher, value-adding level of support function maturity isn’t a distant vision but a tangible goal that can be achieved with purposeful action.

Leaders who have stabilized their contact center operations must now think about harnessing the positive changes unleashed by the crisis.

Excellent functional level strategies can yield cost savings, offer greater customer satisfaction, provide a more responsive platform for driving transformation—and sharpen your company’s competitive edge.

To keep projects on track, managers must excel on multiple fronts–including fostering transparency into project challenges, encouraging collaboration among all stakeholders, and candidly assessing project risks.

Behind Think Big is transparency and collaboration. That's how BCG conceives a successful large capital project. Let’s think big to make big things happen.

In a turbulent, fast-changing world, innovation success means getting it right over and over again.

Organizations’ biggest cost is usually operations, making it the first place to seek efficiency and productivity improvements to fund the future.

Organization-wide platforms for product and service delivery enable agile ways of working and rapid recovery from crisis.

BCG’s new benchmark reveals that only 10% of companies are truly prepared for supply chain disruptions. Where does your company stand?

Organizations must use all their data, customize and link their underlying systems, and manage the transition patiently to get the best from the new breed of IBP platforms.