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Customers are demanding speed and convenience in their interactions with companies. Technology, especially artificial intelligence, is often better at meeting customer needs than humans. Karen Lellouche Tordjman, leader of BCG’s customer experience work, explains how companies can combine technology and humans to create the most compelling customer journeys and touchpoints.    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

The post–World War II order of free markets, democratic government, and global institutions is breaking apart, argues Nikolaus Lang, who leads BCG’s Global Advantage practice. With the future uncertain, companies should prepare for a range of scenarios that likely involve greater uncertainty and less global trade.   This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Sylvain Duranton helps companies build AI-enabled businesses. As the the global leader of BCG X, he has a front row seat to the generative AI revolution. He discusses the industries likely to face the most disruption, the future of work, and how generative AI can help solve challenges in climate and health. His advice to companies unsure how to get started? Pick a difference-making opportunity; invest adequately; upskill your people; and rethink processes to accommodate generative AI.  (Read more about the risk and reward of generative AI https://www.bcg.com/x/artificial-intelligence/generative-ai.) This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

CEOs generally face either economic uncertainty (the Great Recession) or great change (the digital-driven era preceding the pandemic). Today’s leaders are facing both at the same time, explains Rich Lesser, BCG’s chair. While uncertainty requires resilience, change requires evolution. It’s hard to do both. Nonetheless, Lesser sees great potential with the advances in AI but also physical technologies such as synthetic biology. He shares insights from his own discussions with CEOs as well as from BCG's recent survey of nearly 800 global C-suite executives across all industries, CEO Outlook 2023: Caution, Optimism, and Navigating the Road Ahead. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Companies and banks have often pursued social goals such as financial inclusion as an obligation rather than a business opportunity. Douglas Beal, who leads BCG’s client work with financial institutions on sustainable finance and investing, argues that doing good is also good business. Companies and banks can build profitable, sustainable social business and improve their bottom lines.   This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Financial crime has become big business. The United Nations estimates that 2%–5% of global GDP is laundering every year. If businesses—all businesses, not just banks—are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem, argues BCG’s Hanjo Seibert. Over the past ten years, half of all fines levied in financial crime cases have been regular businesses. Beyond satisfying their legal obligations, businesses can reap other benefits, such as more intimate knowledge of their customers and suppliers. In other words, compliance is good for business.   This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

In Indonesia, consumers began mixing together several orders of McDonald’s soft serve ice cream into a dessert mashup. Videos of this quirky development quickly went viral, and the trend spread to Thailand. Rather than worry about losing control over its carefully crafted image, McDonald’s encouraged the activity by creating an online video ad campaign around their customers’ videos. Welcome to the crazy world of shoppertainment, which BCG projects will grow into a $1 trillion market in Asia by 2025.   This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Nadjia Yousif, BCG’s chief diversity officer, explains how an inclusive workforce creates happier employees who are more likely to stay—and she has the numbers to back her up. Executives and leadership extol the virtues of teamwork. Inclusion is just that—the feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. Nadjia Yousif says that if people feel included, they will be happy, feel a greater sense of well-being, and stick around. This is not fluffy conjecture but a core finding of a BCG survey of 27,000 employees in 16 countries. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

James Lowry has devoted most of his professional life trying to bring corporations and minority communities closer together. While Lowry views many of the corporate diversity efforts in the 1960s and 1970s as charity, he says companies are finally starting to create business-driven initiatives supported with resources and leadership commitment. Lowry talks about how corporations and communities alike benefit from supplier diversity, leadership diversity, financial inclusion, racial equity, and minority business enterprises. He also looks back at that a career that spans volunteering in the Peace Corps, working with Bobby Kennedy in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a troubled Brooklyn neighborhood back in the 1960s, and roaming the corridors of corporate power.   This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Artificial intelligence has generated both business rewards and reputational risk for companies. Consumers and customers have legitimate concerns over the use of AI in business. The best way to address those concerns, says Steven Mills, the chief AI ethics officer for BCG X, is to develop responsible AI principles that set forth how organizations will and will not deploy AI—and what they will do when they fall short of these principles. By working closely with employees, consumers, and customers on these principles, organizations can generate confidence with these key stakeholders. This approach is valuable whether or not governments adopt regulations governing the use of AI. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously declared that “software is eating the world,” meaning it would disrupt traditional industries. Alex Koster, who leads BCG’s automotive technology and software business, explains just how fundamentally software is altering an industry, whose main product, the car, has changed relatively little in 100 years. In self-driving vehicles, for example, the cabin will offer an immersive experience for riders. Besides the consumer experience, the rise of electric and self-driving cars will likely encourage cooperation between the auto and tech industries and force cities to reimagine the role of streets and public space. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Three decades after the development of the commercial Internet, nearly half the world’s 8 billion people do not have access to high-speed Internet. For Vaishali Rastogi, BCG’s global leader of its technology, media, and telecommunications practice, closing this gap is an economic, social, and moral imperative. It’s also personal, a reflection of her broader interest in inclusion. For the past 30 years Vaishali has trailblazed a professional career in Asia as a woman, and she now works in industries where women remain minorities. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Over the past 20 years, assets under management of financial firms have nearly quadrupled to more than $110 trillion, powered by the growth in equity values. Dean Frankle—who leads BCG’s asset and wealth management in Western Europe, South America, and Africa—foresees a more textured and nuanced future for the industry. Alternative asset classes, such as toll roads and other infrastructure, could account for up to half of the industry’s revenue. Passive investing will continue its growth as the emergence of personalized indexes takes hold. And climate and sustainability will increasingly shape investment decision-making. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Linear thinking is valuable when the environment is relatively stable and familiar. But in uncertain economic times, executives also need to think expansively about the future, analyzing a range of potential scenarios. Alan Iny discusses how executives can prepare for uncertainty rather than be overwhelmed by it. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

COP27, the global climate conference in Egypt, represented a mix of accomplishments and frustrations. Wealthy nations agreed to establish a fund to help pay for the loss and damage that their emissions have imposed on poor countries in Africa and elsewhere. And yet the current levels of emissions from the North remain stubbornly high, and will continue to affect nations in the South. Several members of BCG’s COP27 delegation discuss what the conference means for Africa—the need for resilient infrastructure and communities, the need for the private sector to do more, and the dangers that both climate change and climate action impose on women. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

We often hear that the climate transition must also be a just transition. But how can we make that happen when, for example, coal remains both the largest source of energy in the world and a source of steady income for miners in many countries? Keshlan Mudaly, a BCG principal in Johannesburg, South Africa, unpacks the many tradeoffs and dilemmas that confront public and private leaders in their quest to lower carbon emissions. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

It’s 2050 and we’re exploring how the world radically reduced carbon emissions and saved itself from climate catastrophe. What have our cities done to accommodate massive population growth? And how do businesses, governments, researchers and everyday people work together to build sustainable supply chains, agricultural practices and transportation infrastructure? This is Climate Vision 2050, a new podcast series from BCG. In an exclusive peek at episode 1, energy islands around the world power our societies in 2050, each with hundreds of offshore wind turbines. In this episode, we travel alongside offshore technician Sofia Rojas to the North Sea energy island; one of the oldest. Sofia must investigate and fix an anomaly detected through the island's AI interface known as SAILOR. Full series launching 2023. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

How well will the world adapt to ever more extreme climate events? To date most government and business leaders are focusing on climate mitigation at the expense of climate adaptation. Charmian Caines, a senior partner at BCG, argues that they must do both. They should build scenarios assessing the economic, social, and natural damage of rising temperatures and develop financial and operational plans to combat rising sea levels, raging fires, and other extreme weather events. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Corporate values are more important than ever. Should companies boycott countries with values they do not share? Kushal Khandhar, global Pride@BCG manager, argues it often makes sense for companies with LGBTQ+–friendly policies to continue to work in queer-unfriendly countries. Companies can be “embassies of values,” says Khandar who has worked in conservative countries whose governments outlaw his sexuality. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Inflation is higher than it’s been in a generation, but policy makers still have room to maneuver. Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG’s global chief economist, is concerned about inflation but not yet willing to say the world is in a new era of constantly spiraling prices and collapsing asset prices. Central banks and policy makers still have the tools to control potential contagion. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy