Book Image

Enterprise Agility

By : Sunil Mundra
Book Image

Enterprise Agility

By: Sunil Mundra

Overview of this book

The biggest challenge enterprises face today is dealing with fast-paced change in all spheres of business. Enterprise Agility shows how an enterprise can address this challenge head on and thrive in the dynamic environment. Avoiding the mechanistic construction of existing enterprises that focus on predictability and certainty, Enterprise Agility delivers practical advice for responding and adapting to the scale and accelerating pace of disruptive change in the business environment. Agility is a fundamental shift in thinking about how enterprises work to effectively deal with disruptive changes in the business environment. The core belief underlying agility is that enterprises are open and living systems. These living systems, also known as complex adaptive systems (CAS), are ideally suited to deal with change very effectively. Agility is to enterprises what health is to humans. There are some foundational principles that can be broadly applied, but the definition of healthy is very specific to each individual. Enterprise Agility takes a similar approach with regard to agility: it suggests foundational practices to improve the overall health of the body—culture, mindset, and leadership—and the health of its various organs: people, process, governance, structure, technology, and customers. The book also suggests a practical framework to create a plan to enhance agility.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Enterprise Agility
About Packt
Forewords
Endorsements
Contributors
Preface
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index

Optimal agility


As stated earlier, the desired, or optimal, level of agility will be specific to the circumstances of an enterprise. Attaining and maintaining agility will involve the investment of time, money, and effort, which are finite resources.

Hence, the goal should be to have as much agility needed to influence potential events, such that the chances of adverse events and/or the impact of adverse events on the enterprise are minimized, and the chances of favorable events are maximized and/or the impact of such events creates opportunities to make positive outcomes. Just like living healthily cannot guarantee good health, agility does not guarantee positive outcomes or that the enterprise will be insulated from negative outcomes. However, the optimal level of agility will definitely increase the probability that an enterprise can cope with adverse circumstances and exploit the favorable circumstances arising as a result of change.