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Enduring Ideas: Classic McKinsey frameworks that continue to inform management thinking

In this interactive module, we present a series of strategic and organizational frameworks with audio commentary.

JULY 2008

Ever since strategy arose as a managerial discipline in the 1960s, business leaders have been honing their analysis of where and how to compete, grow, and best manage their organizations. Strategic and organizational models or frameworks help inform these decisions, offering shorthand for qualitative analysis of potential scenarios and insight on what options to adopt.

Today’s complex business environment has rendered some of these models obsolete, but others have endured. In this series of interactive presentations, McKinsey Quarterly presents a selection of frameworks, highlighting their origin, utility, and lasting relevance.

Enduring Ideas: Classic McKinsey frameworks
A selection of strategic and organizational frameworks that continue to inform management thinking
Launch Interactive
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7-S: Lowell Bryan, a director in McKinsey’s New York office, reflects on 7-S, a framework introduced in the late 1970s to address the critical role of coordination, rather than structure, in organizational effectiveness. Read more about 7-S.



SCP: John Stuckey, a director emeritus in McKinsey’s Sydney office, comments on SCP, a framework whose origin dates back to the 1930s. This framework depicts the influence of an industry’s structure (for example, the growth of demand and barriers to entry) on the conduct of producers (pricing, for example) and the performance of both the industry and the producers. Read more about SCP.



GE–McKinsey nine-box matrix: Kevin Coyne, a McKinsey alumnus and senior adviser to the firm on strategy, describes the GE–McKinsey nine-box matrix. Read more about the nine-box matrix.



Industry cost curve: McKinsey director Rob Latoff offers insight into the industry cost curve, a business school classic for understanding pricing. By bringing discipline and a practical set of definitions to bear, this framework can be applied to real-world, competitive markets. Read more about the industry cost curve.



The business system: McKinsey alumnus Kevin Coyne describes how the business system framework can facilitate the creation of a truly integrated business strategy. Read more about the business system.



The portfolio of initiatives: McKinsey director Lowell Bryan discusses how the portfolio-of-initiatives framework offers a way to develop strategy in a more fluid, less predictable environment. Read more about the portfolio of initiatives.



The three horizons of growth: The three horizons framework illustrates how to manage for current performance while maximizing future opportunities for growth. Read more about the three horizons of growth.



The strategic control map: McKinsey director Lowell Bryan describes the strategic control map, a framework that tracks the dynamics of market capitalization within industries. Read more about the strategic control map.

Recommend (109)
  • 13 JULY 2010
    George Hazapis
    Senior Executive, Business Support Services
    Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry
    Dubai, UAE

    These classic McKinsey Frameworks are in many ways current, however, we must be vigilant and note that creative destruction and technological convergance will alter these models....

    Read more
    .
    George Hazapis
    Senior Executive, Business Support Services
    Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry
    Dubai, UAE

    These classic McKinsey Frameworks are in many ways current, however, we must be vigilant and note that creative destruction and technological convergance will alter these models. What companies should watch for are trend developments and business model innovation needed in terms of companies’strategies, and capacity building.

    .
  • 17 JUNE 2009
    Roy Woodhead
    Consultant Architect
    EDS (an HP Company)
    Oxford, UK

    ...The underpinning models all seem to assume a stable macro economic framework and have “Industry” as the primary context. However, we are starting to see the Internet change the macro level systems...

    Read more
    .
    Roy Woodhead
    Consultant Architect
    EDS (an HP Company)
    Oxford, UK

    Thanks for sharing terrific insights. The underpinning models all seem to assume a stable macro economic framework and have “Industry” as the primary context. However, we are starting to see the Internet change the macro level systems as seen with new emergent business models (e.g. pop-up restaurants), social networks (e.g. World Cafe), public confrontation as in Iran recently, and growing pressure for other evaluation measures besides profit (e.g. environment). I see this as a kind of Schumpeterian technology curve operating at national if not global levels.

    How sensitive are the founding assumptions in the presentations to changes in the macro context, and new emergent paradigms? Also, if each corporation is a viewed as one node in an economic system, and their needs, synchronised with the needs of other corporations in a recession, are out of step with the expectations of the many, what new thinking and new models are required? My fear is the green shoots of recovery are simply a blip caused by fiscal policy and the possibility of deflation and unchecked short termist behaviours will push us back in to economic decline. I say this as your models focus on the corporation and seem to downplay the environment in which all such corporations function within.

    Hope this is seen as me trying to create dialogue and not as any criticism. The material shared in this presentation is, as I said above, teriffic.

    .
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