Insight Exchange by L.E.K. Consulting

The connected home ecosystem comprises an estimated 1.8 billion smart devices, and that number is climbing. In this episode, we’ll explore ‘The Connected Home: Can Your Company Plug Into Opportunity?’ In L.E.K. Consulting’s recent survey, 89% of current connected-product owners had considered purchasing a connected device within the past year. Moreover, 60% of current connected-product nonowners a...

Consumer businesses have faced dramatic increases in input costs over the past 24 months, primarily due to the lingering impact of COVID-19. To avoid profit erosion, most businesses responded by passing cost increases on to consumers in the form of higher prices. But consumers, concerned with a potential recession, are adjusting their spending habits. With the worst of inflation hopefully behind u...

Chronic workforce shortages are leaving healthcare providers facing unprecedented challenges. Operating models are being undermined, as is the ability to create value or deliver growth and profits. Historically, providers were often able to rely on recruiting their way out of such problems. However, the structural and global nature of current workforce shortages means this is no longer an option f...

Medtech companies are under significant pressure from several macroeconomic factors, including inflation and supply chain disruption. Shortages of components, such as semiconductors, are constraining production volumes and further driving up medtech cost structures. At the same time, rapid and dramatic foreign exchange rate fluctuations have also contributed to significant swings in pricing for bo...

We are facing an array of health crises, ranging from a high prevalence of chronic disease to worsening mental health. Stress levels are rising, driven by a range of factors including the pandemic, geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, climate change and broader cultural shifts. These challenges create a huge economic burden on the global economy, with rippling societal ramifications nec...

L.E.K. Consulting conducted the annual European Brand Owner Packaging Survey with over 600 participants across the food, beverage, beauty and personal care, health and wellness, household, pet, and consumer electronics sectors.    Participants spanned Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Poland. Sampling was conducted in November and December of 2022, with final results delivered in January...

As a leading global strategy consulting firm, L.E.K. Consulting has helped its clients deliver value-creating growth by addressing key strategic and operational issues. L.E.K. has worked with fitness clients across many strategic issues, including: Developing a post-COVID-19 growth strategy for a leading fitness certification provider Supporting the sales process for a leading connected fitness co...

Rapid changes in the biopharma industry are making it increasingly difficult to launch new products successfully. Especially challenging are novel treatment modalities such as gene and cell therapy, the increased use of biomarkers, and expanded requirements to demonstrate economic value. In addition, biopharmas must navigate the declining access to physicians, digitalization, intense competition a...

As the U.S. moves toward a zero emissions mandate, Cristóbal Colón, Matthew Wayne, Ricardo Olalla Guerra and José Portilla explore this transition’s impact on the automotive aftermarket and the opportunities available to capitalize on battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) before it’s too late. Since California’s executive order in 2021, other states have followed suit in the U.S., Europe just approved...

Patients and sites that recruit and enroll patients change how trials are executed. Year after year, R&D costs incurred by biopharmaceutical companies to bring new therapies to the market are skyrocketing. There is also a lack of appropriate racial representation among study participants. As clinical trial sponsors fail to reach their recruitment targets, these dynamics have led to a greater r...

This joint strategic outlook by the World Economic Forum and L.E.K. Consulting aims to unite stakeholders across different sectors, industries and geographies to develop and achieve a shared vision for health and healthcare by 2035.    The COVID-19 pandemic created health, economic, political and environmental challenges while exposing global disparities caused by income, age, race, sex and geogra...

In this episode, Claire Davies, Rob Haslehurst and Emile Santos explore the irony of businesses attempting to maintain price increases in an inflationary environment, even as they struggle with the rising costs of labor, logistics and raw materials.   "We live in a competitive capitalized economy, and ultimately competitive action is what they're looking for and no business is going to hold prices...

In the United States, companies within the manufacturing industry are currently dealing with an unprecedented confluence of challenges. To understand how they’re addressing these challenges and planning for the future, L.E.K. Consulting surveyed some 160 U.S. industrial equipment and technology company executives and conducted in-depth interviews with the most senior survey participants. In this e...

When you hear the term “Sustainability,” what comes to mind? Even today, the construction industry continues to thrive. And as the world continues to develop, consumers are becoming more aware of sustainability and, thus, are prioritizing energy-efficient solutions to produce better homes. However, there is a lot to consider when selecting products and materials to reduce emissions. With that in m...

Psychedelics are set to become the next major innovation in mental healthcare. Despite the large flow of investment into this area, the development of psychedelic drugs is not without its hurdles. In this episode, we’ll get an introduction to the challenges surrounding the development of psychedelic drugs for mental healthcare, including clinical trial design, manufacture and commercialization. Pa...

Consumers who are concerned about what they are putting into their bodies have similar concerns about what they are putting onto their bodies. In this episode, we are going to take a look at recent food trends that are now converging in the beauty industry. The rising importance of product label ingredients Specific health attributes On-the-go customers value convenience This episode will explore...

Three decades of historically low inflation have left many businesses without the experience or capabilities to navigate the changing economic paradigm. In recent months gas, wheat, corn, and other essential food ingredients have risen by over 100%. Key manufacturing commodities have fared a little better with copper, aluminium, and others experiencing increases of over 60%. Add in demands for wag...

Rapid changes in the health and wellness marketplace are being driven by evolving consumer needs, new product innovation, and competition from new entrants in this market. In today's episode, Noor Abdel-Samed, Joe Johnson, Todd Clark, and Kevin Grabenstatter discuss the new and effective strategies needed to make the difference between survival and success in the Health and Wellness space. Connect...

The Women’s Health space is currently firmly in the spotlight and undergoing deep transformation, spurred by ‘FemTech’ entrants that are innovating on traditional standards of care, through new medical devices, care delivery models, and community-building platforms that are often digitally enabled. Traditionally, women’s health has been a highly underserved area within healthcare due to endemic is...

Recent partnerships between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage producers have bridged across traditional category lines. Traditionally there was a divide between non-alcoholic beverage producers dipping their toes in alcoholic beverages and vice versa, but that barrier has begun to erode and largely break down over the past 1-2 years due to shifts in consumer demand. Today we discuss how the blu...

Defining an effective sustainability strategy is the new key to corporate success. Join the team from the L.E.K. Sustainability Centre of Excellence for a Q&A session to learn about the findings from L.E.K.'s Global Corporate Sustainability Survey, and discover how placing sustainability at the heart of strategy, and ensuring leadership are aligned behind your sustainability vision could be th...

Already exceeding more than $4 trillion annually, U.S. healthcare spending continues to grow faster than the rate of inflation. Healthcare providers and other stakeholders have been challenged as never before to find ways to meet care needs for a nation experiencing an ongoing pandemic, as well as manage unprecedented workforce shortages. A wave of unconventional dealmaking has seen traditional he...

Manufacturing is never simple, but it’s rarely been as hard as it was in 2021. The year began with optimism as COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in the U.S.; people began returning to more-normal lives and economic activity rose. That optimism was short-lived as the stresses of the past two years ravaged the supply chain-denying automakers and consumer electronics makers the chips needed t...

Outsourcing the collection of defaulted unsecured consumer debt from lending, insurance, utilities, and telecoms is a well-established industry in Europe. But the industry is on the cusp of disruption. New tech-based collections firms have emerged in Europe in the last few years and built increasingly attractive, viable businesses off the back of the internet-based products and digital services ex...

Methane emissions are heavily concentrated in oil and gas, which has prompted changes in upstream processes and investment in new technologies. In this episode, we discuss the size of the problem that methane emissions present in the oil and gas sector. We discuss measures that companies are taking to account for managing today's methane emissions as well as the challenges in reduction. Finally, w...