Why Cyprus firms increasingly refer to McKinsey these days?

1 Cyprus4 0

By Elisabeth Kesterlian, Certified Trainer

Traditionally Cyprus firms have always adopted an “Accounting” culture, as a result, they solicited advice and solutions from local Big 4s, where their core business is Tax and Legal Services, and the smallest division, Advisory service line offering solutions to business problems.

In recent years, however, there has been an influx of younger people into Cyprus businesses, and they have been exposed to contemporary management practice. As these ideas made their way into Cyprus board rooms, they found increasing acceptance given that the advantages they provided were without question.

Much of the influence of McKinsey in Cyprus has involved the management of human capital.  For McKinsey, management at every level involves not only basic qualities such as integrity and intelligence: “We combine these with ‘thinking like an owner,’ innovation, and the ability to inspire others,” writes one McKinsey commentator.  We apply the same leadership principles to every stage of the employee life cycle. This approach means that we have a set of criteria for the skills and behaviour managers should live by and employees should believe in.”

Getting employees and management on the same page through good communication of values is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well. Cyprus 4.0 keeps people at the centre, enabling them to make full use of cutting-edge technology while engaging their creative and communicative abilities.

The Cyprus Human Resources Association says it all in a recent article. “It is the highly visible shift towards human-centricity. Companies are actively building around what it is to be a human-being. The whole being too, in and out of work. How can you get the best out of people if you don’t understand them? How can they thrive if they are set up to fail by outdated workplace and HR practices? How do you do this when things get tough?”

Companies engaged in the Fourth Industrial Revolution take on all these challenges.

 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.