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Our Latest Thinking on Operations

Improving operations has never been easy, and the rise of digital has ushered in new challenges and opportunities. Capitalizing on big data, machine learning, and AI to boost efficiency is essential, but it requires new skill sets and a cultural overhaul. Explore BCG’s latest thought leadership on digital operations and more.

COVID-19

DIGITAL OPERATIONS

LEAN AND MANUFACTURING

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

PROCUREMENT

DESIGN, ENGINEER, BUILD

SERVICE & SUPPORT

COST & EFFICIENCY

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Featured Insights

A Manufacturing Strategy Built for Trade Instability

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How Manufacturers Can Unlock Value from Data Sharing

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Organizing for Digital Operations at Scale

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Jump-Starting the Digital Procurement Journey

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COVID-19

Delivering Essential Products to Consumers, Uninterrupted

COVID-19 has exposed the high cost of inflexible CPG supply chains. Companies must act now to ensure adequate supplies and plan for greater resilience in future.

Building Adaptive Resilience During Covid-19

Mindfulness can help us change the way we look at our emotions to become better leaders.

Stabilizing Supply Chains in Response to COVID-19

Supply chain teams must orchestrate a response that accounts for the lockdown status of various regions around the globe—on top of the usual interdependencies.

Stabilizing Manufacturing Operations in Response to COVID-19

By applying best practices during each phase of their response, manufacturers will be better positioned to survive the crisis and meet the surge in demand when the pandemic subsides.

Contact Centres Under COVID-19 Conditions: Sustaining Service Through Uncertainty

To keep operations stable during the extended coronavirus outbreak, you need to move beyond crisis management.

Procurement in the Time of COVID-19

Procurement will be critical in getting companies through the crisis. Now’s the time for CEOs to strengthen relationships with their suppliers’ CEOs.

COVID-19 and the New Leadership Agenda

The COVID-19 outbreak underscores the need to be resilient in the face of transformative global risk.

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Digital Operations

The How-To Guide to Digital Operations

Digitizing manufacturing operations is imperative—yet immensely difficult. Companies that have tried have seen mixed results. We’ve identified factors that separate leaders from laggards.

How Ford Organized for Digital Operations at Scale

Digitization—when done right and at scale—yields impressive results. Discover how manufacturing companies can learn from Ford’s success as Mike Mikula, Ford’s global chief engineer, shares insights with BCG’s Jonathan Van Wyck.

Putting Value First in Digital Operations

Tune out the tech sales pitches. Focus instead on what you seek to achieve from a digital transformation.

Lean and Manufacturing

Quality 4.0 Takes More Than Technology

Digital tools can greatly enhance quality management—but to fully capture their value, manufacturers must also develop change management, communication, and teaming skills.

Advanced Robotics in the Factory of the Future

Robot functionality is improving and costs are declining, but producers need a comprehensive vision to capture the promised value.

Blockchain in the Factory of the Future

Manufacturing operations increasingly require data sharing and collaboration across complex networks of companies and machines. Is blockchain the solution to these challenges?

Supply Chain Management

Inside the Bionic Supply Chain

BCG’s Stefan Gstettner compares the “Bionic Supply Chain” – humans and machines using advanced technologies to collaborate far more effectively – with traditional supply chain approaches, in this excerpt from an interview with LokadTV. See the full episode here: The Bionic Supply Chain.

Conquering Complexity in Supply Chains with Digital Twins

Companies can anticipate risks and make critical optimization decisions far sooner than previously possible.

Reinventing the CPG Supply Chain with Zero-Based Budgeting

Incremental reductions won’t cut it in today’s business environment. CPG companies must fundamentally change the way they manage their supply chain costs.

Procurement

Supercharge Savings by Getting Closer to Suppliers

To optimize their cost-cutting efforts, smart companies are turning to their suppliers.

2019 European Procurement Roundtable

At BCG's 13th annual European procurement roundtable, in Munich, more than 80 CPOs and procurement executives discussed what it will take to win in the next decade.

Raising Procurement’s Game in PMI

Investors increasingly want more than low-single-digit savings from acquisitions. Procurement is in a position to deliver.

Taming Tail Spend

Digital can help procurement teams gain a much deeper understanding of their purchases—and cut costs significantly.

Design, Engineer, Build

Why High Oil Prices Can Be Bad for Energy Companies

During price upturns, companies often indulge in bad behavior, such as “window dressing” capital projects with overly optimistic cost and completion assumptions—jeopardizing project performance.

Think Big

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.

The Most Innovative Companies 2019

Innovators are doubling down on digital—and embracing AI, platforms, and ecosystems for advantage.

The Race Toward Engineering 4.0

Leading companies are already sprinting toward a digital and data-driven future.

Service & Support

With ERP and Digital Support Functions, It’s Not Either-Or—It’s Both

Adopting a best-of-breed approach improves flexibility in critical processes while unleashing more agile ways of working.

Service 4.0: Transforming Customer Interactions

Customers today have high expectations, but traditional service providers often fail to meet those demands. Service 4.0 represents a fundamental transformation that can help companies meet consumers' needs.

Banks Can Outsmart the Competition with Intelligent Operations

To keep pace with evolving customer expectations and achieve greater efficiency, banks must implement a set of operational improvements interactively and in harmony.

A Radical Redesign for Support Functions in the Digital Age

New technologies are changing how support functions work—and rendering some of them entirely obsolete. To capitalize, companies need to reorganize those functions from the ground up.

Cost & Efficiency

Simpler, Faster, and More Efficient Operations in Financial Services

A practical approach to cost cutting can yield savings of up to 80%.

Zero-Based Budgeting Comes to Business Functions

To prime your white-collar processes for digital (or any) transformation, drill down to the process essentials.

The Corporate Center of the Future

The growth of automation, digitalization, and virtual collaboration is putting pressure on companies to reimagine the way their corporate centers operate.

The CFO’s Vital Role in Corporate Transformation

CFOs can maintain a relentless focus on value creation by serving as strategic advisors to business leaders, overseeing performance, and communicating a persuasive equity story to investors.