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

The mechanistic approach that is outdated for enterprise modeling


Looking back in history, the period from 1945-71, also known as the Golden Age of Capitalism [i], saw an unprecedented boom in business activity. The only major problem that businesses appeared to have in this period was how to produce more, to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for their products and services. Most enterprises had limited product and service offerings and custom-made offerings were an exception. Companies during this period were production- or inward-focused. Competition was not very intense and the business environment was largely stable and predictable, compared to today.

The focus of companies was largely on standardization and maximizing efficiency. Processes and tools were, by far, more important than people. People were mandated to adhere to processes and comply with "orders" from "bosses." Innovation and creativity were limited to research and development departments, if considered at all.

In this period...