business case study 2020

2020 year in review: Highlights from our publishing

Top 10 lists of most popular insights, overall top 10 for the year, mckinsey quarterly, mckinsey global institute, editors’ picks, diversity & inclusion, marketing, consumer, and retail, organization, strategy & corporate finance, sustainability.

A tale of 2020 in 20 McKinsey charts

Twenty images that offer a lens on 2020

Top reports this year.

Women in the Workplace 2022

State of Fashion report archive (2017-2023)

McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review archive: 2014 to 2022

Diversity wins: How inclusion matters

How executives can help sustain value creation for the long term

McKinsey’s Private Markets Annual Review: 2017 to 2022

New features this year, we are mckinsey, the mckinsey crossword, mckinsey’s annual reading list, 2020 favorites from gen z colleagues, new experiences this year, what now decisive actions to emerge stronger in the next normal, mckinsey for kids, do you know your life’s purpose, popular special collections this year.

The Next Normal: Emerging stronger from the coronavirus pandemic

COVID Response Center

McKinsey and the World Economic Forum

McKinsey on Books

The graduate’s guide to the world of work

Popular podcasts this year.

In this year of lockdowns, listeners tuned in to reflect and learn—how to be more productive, more inclusive, and more resilient in the face of adversity. Here are some of our most streamed podcasts of 2020.

Listen to more McKinsey Podcasts

Uncovering the state of fashion

The future of air travel

The mass personalization of change: Large-scale impact, one individual at a time

Building a business within a business: How to power continual organic growth

Getting the measure of corporate Asia

Meet Generation Z: Shaping the future of shopping

Newsletters.

The editors of our four most-read email newsletters and multimedia series chose their favorite issues of the year to share with you. Whether daily, weekly, or monthly, our newsletter offerings span functional, industry, and news-based topics—and we’re adding more in 2021.

The Shortlist

The Next Normal

The Five Fifty

Popular webinars from mckinsey live.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created and exacerbated countless challenges for leaders, organizations, and communities. In our most popular McKinsey Live webinars, McKinsey experts brought these issues to the forefront and offered perspectives on navigating beyond the crisis to shape the next normal.

Learn more about McKinsey Live

New at McKinsey blog: 2020 year in review

Mckinsey global institute: twelve highlights from our 2020 research, covid response center’s year in review.

Building a stronger, more inclusive US workforce

Leading voices on the pandemic

The emotional toll of COVID-19

Acknowledgments.

McKinsey Global Publishing would like to thank, first and foremost, the many authors of these articles and other insights for their contributions and analysis.

And we want to acknowledge the many direct contributors who offered vital energy and expertise—under extraordinary personal and professional circumstances—to the development, editing, risk review, copyediting, fact checking, data visualization, design, production, and dissemination of all of McKinsey’s content over the past year.

McKinsey Global Publishing

Raju Narisetti

Global Editorial Director

Lucia Rahilly

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Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

• Robin J. Ely
• David A. Thomas

Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular rhetoric about diversity and revisits an argument the authors made 25 years ago: To fully benefit from increased racial and gender diversity, organizations must adopt a learning orientation and be willing to change the corporate culture and power structure.

Four actions are key for leaders: building trust and creating a workplace where people feel free to express themselves; actively combating bias and systems of oppression; embracing a variety of styles and voices inside the organization; and using employees’ identity-related knowledge and experiences to learn how best to accomplish the firm’s core work.

It’s time for a new way of thinking.

Idea in Brief

The context.

Business leaders often make a business case for diversity, claiming that hiring more women or people of color results in better financial performance.

The Problem

There’s no empirical evidence that simply diversifying the workforce, absent fundamental changes to the organizational culture, makes a company more profitable.

A Better Approach

Companies can benefit from diversity if leaders create a psychologically safe workplace, combat systems of discrimination and subordination, embrace the styles of employees from different identity groups, and make cultural differences a resource for learning and improving organizational effectiveness.

“The business case has been made to demonstrate the value a diverse board brings to the company and its constituents.”

• RE Robin J. Ely is the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the faculty chair of the HBS Gender Initiative.
• DT David A. Thomas is the president of Morehouse College. He is also the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the former dean of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

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Case collection: Harvard Business Publishing

About Harvard Business Publishing

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is the leading provider of teaching materials for management education.

HBP was founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of Harvard University, reporting into Harvard Business School. HBP's mission is to improve the practice of management in a changing world. This mission influences how they approach what they do and what they believe is important.

With approximately 450 employees, primarily based in Boston, with offices in New York City, India, Singapore, Qatar and the United Kingdom, HBP serves as a bridge between academia and enterprises around the globe through its publications and multiple platforms for content delivery, and its reach into three markets: academic, corporate, and individual managers. HBP has a conventional governance structure comprising a  Board of Directors , an internal  Executive Committee , and Business Unit Directors.

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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2019

In the 2019 top 40 list, cases centered around food dominated the top 10, with the 2016 Coffee case retaining the top spot.

According to the Yale School of Management Case Research and Development Team (SOM CRDT) 2019 top 40 list, cases centered around food dominated the top 10, with the 2016 Coffee case retaining the top spot, a case on Cadbury taking second, and a case about Shake Shack taking third. A 2018 case about the Volkswagen emissions scandal made the Top 40 this year, shooting up to number four. Cases about Aadhaar , India’s universal ID project, the Nathan Cummings Foundation’s move to all-impact investing , business efforts to bridge the divide between Israel and Palestine , and New Haven’s own 360 State Street development all joined the list this year. Other popular topics in the top 10 include the marketing of financial services, organizational structure, and entrepreneurship.

SOM CRDT compiled its third annual Top 40 list by combining data from publishers, Google Analytics, direct sales, and other measures of interest and adoption. Other year-end data for 2019 showed:

• Over 30K users from 161 countries viewed 133 “raw” cases online.
• Just over a third of raw case users were from the U.S.
• Customers purchased 127 different case titles from the online store.
• Twenty-five percent of this year’s cases in the top 40 featured women protagonists.
• Traffic to the SOM CRDT case directory increased by 30% over 2018, with almost 150K page views.
• Sixty percent of those who perused the SOM case directory were from outside the U.S.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 33 different Yale SOM faculty members.

All cases listed here are available for purchase through our online store . 

The top 10 cases of 2019 included:

#1 - Coffee 2016

Faculty Supervision: Todd Cort

Coffee 2016 asks students to consider the coffee supply chain and generate ideas for what can be done to equalize returns across various stakeholders. The case draws a parallel between coffee and wine. Both beverages encourage connoisseurship, but only wine growers reap a premium for their efforts to ensure quality, while coffee farmers barely eke out an existence. The case describes the history of coffee production across the world, the rise of the “third wave” of coffee consumption in the developed world, the efforts of the Illy Company to help coffee growers, and the differences between “fair” trade and direct trade. Faculty have found the case provides a wide canvas to discuss supply chain issues, examine marketing practices, and encourage creative solutions to business problems.

#2 - Cadbury: An Ethical Company Struggles to Insure the Integrity of Its Supply Chain

Faculty Supervision: Ira Millstein

The case describes revelations that the production of cocoa in the Côte d’Ivoire involved child slave labor. These stories hit Cadbury especially hard. Cadbury's culture had been deeply rooted in the religious traditions of the company's founders, and the organization had paid close attention to the welfare of its workers and its sourcing practices. The US Congress was considering legislation that would allow chocolate grown on certified plantations to be labeled “slave labor free,” painting the rest of the industry in a bad light. Chocolate producers had asked for time to rectify the situation, but the extension they negotiated was running out. Students are asked whether Cadbury should join with the industry to lobby for more time?  What else could Cadbury do to ensure its supply chain was ethically managed?

#3 - Shake Shack IPO

Faculty Supervision: Jake Thomas and Geert Rouwenhorst

From an art project in a New York City park, Shake Shack developed a devoted fan base that greeted new Shake Shack locations with cheers and long lines. When Shake Shack went public on January 30, 2015, investors displayed a similar enthusiasm. Opening day investors bid up the $21 per share offering price by 118% to reach $45.90 at closing bell. By the end of May, investors were paying $92.86 per share. Students are asked if this price represented a realistic valuation of the enterprise and if not, what was Shake Shack truly worth? The case provides extensive information on Shake Shack’s marketing, competitors, operations and financials, allowing instructors to weave a wide variety of factors into a valuation of the company.

#4 - Volkswagen: Engineering a Disaster

Faculty Supervision: David Bach

In September 2015, Volkswagen admitted to installing defeat switches in their diesel cars to fool environmental regulators. The fraud could cost the company billions in fines and lost revenues, leaving all to wonder, "How could this have happened?" The case considers the company’s history and culture, as well as looking at how regulatory environments in Europe and the U.S. differed. What combination of these factors led to this wide-spread ethical disaster?

#5 - Netflix

Faculty Supervision: Arthur Swersey

The case describes how Netflix optimized the rental of DVDs by mail to become a major media company. In 2007, the company faced two challenges. The first was increased competition in the DVD-by-mail business. The second was challenges from various streaming services. For all its operational savvy, had Netflix’s time passed?

#6 - Ant Financial

Faculty Supervision: K. Sudhir in cooperation with Renmin University of China School of Business

In 2015, Ant Financial’s MYbank (an offshoot of Jack Ma’s Alibaba company) was looking to extend services to rural areas in China by providing small loans to farmers. Microloans have always been costly for financial institutions to offer to the unbanked (though important in development) but MYbank believed that fintech innovations such as using the internet to communicate with loan applicants and judge their creditworthiness would make the program sustainable. Students are asked whether MYbank could operate the program at scale? Would its big data and technical analysis provide an accurate measure of credit risk for loans to small customers? Could MYbank rely on its new credit-scoring system to reduce operating costs to make the program sustainable? What are the social costs of introducing credit scoring to China?

#7 - Mastercard

Faculty Supervision: Ravi Dhar, Vineet Kumar, and Amy Wrzesniewski

When Raja Rajamannar became Mastercard's CMO in 2013, the company had already created one of the most successful brand-building campaigns in history. Yet he decided to substantially change the marketing strategy – and transform his department. The case examines the premises behind “experience marketing” and considers the dynamics of a department where traditional marketers must work with new internet marketers who bring new skills and sensibilities.

#8 - Golden Agri Resources and Sustainability

Golden Agri, a major Indonesian palm oil producer and exporter, and Greenpeace reached an unprecedented agreement to limit deforestation in Indonesia in 2012. But would the agreement survive and increase sustainability standards in the palm oil industry?

#9 - AgBiome

Faculty Supervision: James Baron

Can a company grow while eschewing hierarchy in favor of commitment? From its founding, AgBiome has adopted a flat structure, where committees of employees make the key decisions. The case describes the structures and principles that make this agricultural R&D firm run. With a few successful innovations under its belt, can the company grow while maintaining its commitment model?

#10 - Bovard and Majid

Faculty Supervision: AJ Wasserstein

Lia Majid had spent nearly a year and a half searching for a business to acquire and thought she’d finally found a deal worth pursuing. She spent months negotiating with the firm’s sellers and believed she was on the verge of a purchase. However, at the last minute, her backers and mentors at the Search Fund Accelerator (SFA) wanted her to completely restructure the deal. Faced with their concerns, Majid had to decide whether to re-engage the target firm or move on to investigate other prospects.

Complete list of the 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2019

W                     Case features a woman in a major leadership role

Click on the case title to learn more about the dilemma. A selection of our most popular cases are available for purchase via our online store .