McKinsey Insights

While growth of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market has accelerated since the mid-2010s, the COVID-19 pandemic has propelled it into an new phase. From 2016 to 2021, the total value of e-commerce sales grew fivefold, or 40 percent, annually. And e-commerce’s share of all retail sales surged to 20 percent, from 5 percent. This new stage of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market isn’t just a matter of increased value. Across the subcontinent, more people are buying a wider array of products online across more diversified channels. To accommodate this expanded range of fulfillment demands, the region’s supply chains are shifting. New logistics...

The global aviation value chain is made up of a diverse set of sectors that differ in size, structure, and financial performance. Some sectors generate significant profits while others may struggle to maintain profitability. They also differ in the value they create from an investor’s perspective. Since 2005, McKinsey and IATA have jointly looked at value creation across the aviation value chain to understand what drives performance, and to inform the debate about how to enhance value creation and efficiency across the entire chain. The focus of this ongoing research is economic value creation, defined as the difference between the...

In 2014, Jan Bednar founded ShipMonk. As a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, the company served the growing cadre of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) getting involved in direct-to-consumer e-commerce. It scaled quickly, graduating to larger warehouse facilities and expanding internationally, all while maintaining profitability. In late 2020 and early 2021, ShipMonk secured $355 million in growth equity funding. It now has more than 2,000 employees. “I kind of fell into logistics,” says Bednar. “It was by accident, not by choice.” Bednar started his first company while in college at Florida Atlantic University. He’d buy in-demand American products that weren’t available...

Decarbonization has risen rapidly up the agenda of shipping CEOs. The shipping industry—one of the most costly and challenging sectors to decarbonize—faces growing calls by shareholders, regulators, customers, and other stakeholders to decarbonize at a pace commensurate to the needs of a warming planet. The EU, International Maritime Organization (IMO), and individual countries are tightening carbon regulations, while customers and clients want decarbonized shipping to meet their own Scope 3 decarbonization targets. The same goes for lenders trying to decarbonize their lending portfolios, ......

The pathway to sustainable infrastructure is neither straight nor short. But its successful navigation to reach net-zero emissions is the unrivaled business challenge of a generation of leaders. Since 2012, the Global Infrastructure Initiative Summit has convened many of the world’s most senior leaders to connect and collaborate in pursuit of smart, resilient, and future-ready infrastructure. The eighth GII Summit took place in Tokyo, October 19–21, 2022, and focused on creating the pathway to sustainable infrastructure. And indeed, the top of the CEO agenda is now unavoidably—and rightfully—dominated by sustainability. Meaningful strides in decarbonization, the energy transition, social... Read further.

After climbing to record heights, ocean freight rates have started to come down in the past couple months, despite fuel costs remaining persistently high. How is this possible? In this video presentation, Steve Saxon, McKinsey’s Shenzhen-based partner leading the Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice in China, unpacks some of the reasons behind this latest trend. Watch the video to learn more about: how changes in consumer spending habits and effective supply of maritime transportation are resulting in lower shipping rates the potential implications of elevated operating costs and labor issues on the outlook of shipping rates how...

Players in most shipping subsectors have enjoyed a profitable couple of years. However, the industry faces a complex, rapidly changing environment. Macro uncertainties—the threat of recession, geopolitical volatility, crew shortages, escalation of operational costs, and fluctuations in cargo demand—affect all aspects of operations. In addition, there is increased environmental regulation to get to grips with, and much uncertainty around decarbonization pathways. Crucially, the shipping industry lags behind in digitization, a key enabler for prompt decision making, operational and cost efficiencies, and improved performance. This article introduces a transformation framework to help shipping companies navigate these choppy... Read further.

Last summer, we wrote about the looming travel boom and whether or not the travel industry would be ready. Unfortunately for the industry and its customers, headlines from summer 2022 were filled with stories of long queues, delayed flights, and lost bags—leading to a rise in customer complaints (Exhibit 1). Airlines and airports point to staff shortages across the ecosystem as a major cause of disruption. While labor is an important factor, the problems and solutions run deeper than filling open roles. We present four non-labor-based perspectives on the problems...

Video Experiencing the future of trucking There’s no doubt in David Liu’s mind that in the autonomous-vehicle race to become widely commercially available, trucks will prevail over cars. Autonomous-driving systems use self-learning AI technology, which relies on continuous inflows of information to improve. As trucks spend a lot more time on the road than cars, their systems benefit from a lot more data. Even so, Liu, the founder and CEO of autonomous-trucking company Plus, is pressing his foot down on the gas pedal to accelerate the widespread deployment of PlusDrive, his company’s highly...