Government And Regulatory Intervention Affects About 30 Percent Of Corporate Earnings: McKinsey & Co Calls For Companies To Improve Their Government Relations Functions

From McKinsey & Company, Insights & Publications, "Organizing the government-affairs function for impact: The value at stake from government and regulatory intervention is huge. Companies that approach external engagement in a disciplined way capture more of it." by Reinier Musters, Ellora-Julie Parekh, and Surya Ramkumar, November 2013:

The business value at stake from government and regulatory intervention is huge: about 30 percent of earnings for companies in most industries, we estimate, and higher still in the banking sector, where the figure tops 50 percent. Translating those percentages into euros, dollars, or yen can yield eye-popping results: one European utility found that the ongoing value at stake from regulation was €1.5 billion, or about €30 million for every employee involved in handling the company’s regulatory affairs. Another large global company estimated that in a major acquisition, it was €500 million a year over a decade.

Since there’s so much money on the table, you might assume that companies would organize government relations as carefully as they do other business functions. Surely, for example, companies have people in place to understand the relevant economics, structures, and processes to drive this understanding into important business activities, and regulatory-affairs professionals who work in a collaborative and integrated fashion with business-unit leaders to capture value.

Yet the reality is quite different. In our most recent annual survey, fewer than 30 percent of the executives responding said that their external-affairs groups had the organizational setup and talent necessary to succeed. Only about 20 percent of executives reported frequent success at influencing government policy and regulatory decisions—a proportion that has not increased in the four years we’ve conducted the survey. [Footnotes Omitted.]