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

Enablers to the effectiveness of agility


The following factors related to customers are key enablers that can enhance the effectiveness of enterprise agility.

The "customer-first" culture

As discussed earlier, many enterprises have an explicitly stated policy of "customer first," that is, customer satisfaction being the highest priority. However, often these best intentions largely remain only on paper. Creating a customer-first culture is an imperative for the business to have the agility to retain its customers.

A necessary, but not sufficient, condition, which directly has an impact on customer satisfaction, is happy employees, that is, employees who derive their satisfaction and fulfillment through making customers happy. Southwest Airlines is well known for following the philosophy of happy employees leading to happy customers.

According to Herb Kelleher, co-founder of the airline:

"If the employees come first, then they're happy. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer...