Discussions with colleagues on the meaning and purpose of the World Economic Forum.
Our colleagues discuss the importance of the World Economic Forum as a space for world and industry leaders to come together and discuss the risks and challenges facing our world in 2020.
Economic and political polarization will intensify, as collaboration is needed more than ever to respond to severe threats to climate, public health, and technology systems.
The 15th edition of the Global Risks Report, published by the World Economic Forum with support from Marsh & McLennan, provides a rich perspective on the major threats that may impact global prosperity in 2020 and over the next decade. The report draws on feedback from nearly 800 global experts and decision-makers who were asked to rank their concerns in terms of likelihood and impact.
The Global Risks Report forecasts a year of increased domestic and international divisions with the added risk of economic slowdown. Global experts also see the risk of extreme heatwaves and destruction of natural ecosystems increasing, as well as a rise in cyber-attacks targeting operations and infrastructure and data/money theft.
Profound political, economic, societal, technological and environmental transformations are occuring at an unprecedented scale.
The 14th edition of the Global Risks Report, prepared by the World Economic Forum with the support of Marsh & McLennan Companies and other partners, examines the evolving macro-level risk landscape and highlights major threats that may disrupt the world in 2019 and over the next decade.
Organizations must strengthen their resilience against shocks and surprises.
The 13th edition of the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report, prepared in partnership with Marsh & McLennan Companies, highlights the velocity of political and technological change, and the resulting fractures in world order. For businesses, the report raises critical questions about building resilience and adaptability in the face of seemingly unmanageable risks.
Political and social unrest of years past pose significant strategic risk for businesses, leading organizations to think differently about priorities.
Rising political and social unrest and accelerating technologies are creating risks and instabilities for businesses around the world. The World Economic Forum’s twelfth Global Risks Report, produced with Marsh & McLennan Companies’ support, provides an outlook on the threats facing the world in 2017 and examines some of their root causes: rising inequality, political polarization and nationalism, and disruptive technological change.
The shifting risk landscape encourages organizations to adapt to the new environment.
Disruptive shifts in technology, geopolitics, societal expectations, and economic patterns are creating instabilities that are directly impacting events in the world today. The World Economic Forum’s eleventh Global Risks Report highlights the issues that will exacerbate volatility and uncertainty over the next decade – while also presenting opportunities for governments and businesses to build resilience and deliver sustainable growth.
"We started measuring the success of diverse teams and we found that our win rate was 20% higher when we had at least one woman on the client team." Martine Ferland, President & CEO, Mercer
Watch this year's breakfast panel where experts and a special guest panel of senior business leaders examine the real obstavles to achieving inclusive and workplaces - and explore new strategies that actually make a difference.
How can we advance women in the workforce of the future?
Mercer sets out to further understand the drivers of female advancement and identify concrete steps organizations can take to change or improve their trajectories. The result is a holistic look at the future of women in the workforce — from the headwinds impeding progress, to the system accelerators that provide great hope for sustained improvement.
Understanding the underlying forces driving women’s representation in corporate leadership in Latin America.
Latin American women have made significant progress over the last three decades, increasing their labor force participation and receiving more university degrees than their male counterparts. A full 64% of the organizations surveyed by Mercer understand the business imperative behind gender diversity, yet progress is stagnating and women continue to be underrepresented across industries.
Helping women thrive is an imperative for the technology industry.
The world looks to the tech sector as a lens into the future. Touching almost every corner of the globe, tech behemoths have changed the way the world works and interacts. The ability to create customer demand and stay ahead of the competition – while at the same time manage globalization and increasing regulatory demands – has attracted some of the best and brightest talent to the industry. From office perks to workspace amenities, tech’s approach to attracting and retaining talent has been admired and emulated by other industries..
A diverse workforce delivers product innovation aligned to the needs of varied customers; positive brand image; and unique insights, knowledge and experiences. Significant research has been done over the past two decades linking higher female representation in the workplace with a variety of business performance measures, including better financial performance; higher return on sales, equity and invested capital; higher operating results; better stock growth; and more.
When women thrive, businesses thrive.
Mercer's most comprehensive, analytical and predictive research on women in the workforce - linking organizational policies and programs to results. We've added 13 countries since our initial 2014 report which now includes 42 countries, nearly 600 submissions, and 3.2 million employees, including 1.3 million women.
A collision is taking place in financial services between the vision mindset and the value mindset.
How firms resolve this conflict – between the desire to reimagine the business for the long-term and the need to remain disciplined and profitable in the short-term – will define the industry in the coming years.
The 2020 edition of our State Of The Financial Services Industry report explores how pressure is building to deliver on investment programs and how we believe winning firms will manage the collision between vision and value.
Examining the potential for the industry to start again.
For an industry whose product – the movement and storage of money and the management of risk – is electronic, financial services processes are manually intensive. Surveys show that customers are rarely inspired by the service and yet the consensus is that a digital overhaul of legacy systems will be the work of many years. At the same time, new businesses underpinned by digital capabilities are gaining traction.
In the 2019 edition of Oliver Wyman's State of Financial Services report we examine the potential for the industry to start again and point to the first steps in the journey – "go build!"
Who will close the customer value gap in Financial Services and reap the rewards?
Traditional financial services firms will need to accelerate customer value creation or risk conceding an increasing share of customer attention and wallet to other firms, primarily to ‘big tech.’ While financial services incumbents have largely recovered towards relative health ten years on from the financial crisis and conditions have improved significantly, there is a gnawing sense of concern regarding the prospects for future underlying industry growth.
As digital technologies change how people live and work, financial services firms need to choose how they will adapt to a broadly reordered marketplace.
To stay competitive in their existing core businesses, financial service incumbents will need to invest in digital transformation much more deeply than they have previously in order to realize dramatic cost reductions. However, retooling existing businesses for digital efficiency will not in itself create shareholder value. Competitive pressure will mean that most cost savings are ultimately passed on to customers. Digitizing incumbents’ existing businesses, if done well, will preserve shareholder value, but not increase it. In addition, the report explores the broader organizational implications of each archetype, and management actions that can guide an incumbent’s journey to building competitive advantages and increased shareholder value.
Modular Financial Services: The New Shape of the Industry
Financial services companies have gone through major changes over the last 10 years. Nonetheless, while the turmoil in financial services has been dramatic, other industries have been more radically transformed. For example, digital technology has destroyed established business models in music and publishing. Such a transformation may now be on the horizon for financial services.
We believe financial services are becoming “modular”, with digital distribution platforms, new product providers, alternative sources of capital and a growth in outsourcing fundamentally reshaping the industry.
Established firms will need to respond to the modular industry structure. Some will try to compete with commerce and technology firms and build sophisticated customer platforms. Others will concentrate on areas of sustainable advantage, making the most of their customer data, analytics and funding models. And they will reinvent their back offices as supply chains.
