Response & Resilience

A large aerospace and defense manufacturer faced chronic supply chain challenges, including severe shortages and increasing supplier part quality issues on the production line. McKinsey and the client worked together to develop a data-backed early warning system with a cross-functional operating model to drive more proactive risk mitigation actions and ensure supply chain continuity. Through analytics and a holistic stakeholder change management strategy, the manufacturer was able to reduce supplier-caused part shortages by ~25 percent and shift ~40 percent of supplier part quality defect identification up the value stream, delivering >$200 million in EBITDA impact.

Supported short-term refugee relief in Ukraine, including services for up to 30,000 refugees across more than 25 reception centers. We identified 90,000 available places in schools, capacity for 200,000 people to receive healthcare, and 70,000 housing opportunities. Our team matched them to refugee needs. We connected more than three million refugees to an online job platform, resulting in 17,000 jobs posted and 65,000 job applications submitted.

Improved overall resilience of a global pharma company that had experienced a major cyberattack and found its business continuity plans inadequate for thriving in major disruption. We rapidly defined ~15 top enterprise priorities and refocused the scope and business effort, making the program sustainable. We improved the central team and businesses’ capabilities to strengthen its business continuity going forward.

Our team supported the organization in managing disaster response efforts to build and integrate data sets to clarify humanitarian needs, resource prioritization, and impact tracking during the fast-moving crisis. We built a common operating picture (COP) that allowed the NGO to better understand humanitarian needs, especially in areas that had yet to be visited by aid workers, by using open-source satellite data and deploying an AI solution, as well as integrating data from the client and outside sources (e.g., UN relief data, social media, telecommunications data). The lead organization adapted the COP to allocate cash grants for displaced and vulnerable populations. In addition, we helped the NGO build a training program on personnel safeguarding.