Synopses & Reviews
Praise for Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World
"This is the next evolution of business strategy. This book gives leaders a new model of business agility that balances the need for standardized business processes to drive efficiency with the ability to adapt to marketplace and customer expectations. Hugos makes the business case for adaptability and resiliency just at a time when it is needed most."
—John Babiarz, Group President, ARAMARK Healthcare
"We are a $2 billion commodities manufacturer of foodservice disposables and face many of the challenges described by Mr. Hugos. From our experience in the last several years, I believe business agility and responsiveness is one of the only competitive advantages we can use today to differentiate us from our competitors."
—Tom Pasqualini, EVP Global Supply Chain, Solo Cup Company
"Dynamic! Meaningful! Easy to read and understand! Mike Hugos has captured all the aspects that must be successfully integrated for today's firms (small and large) to grow their bottom line. A special area of interest is how he identifies successful military approaches that can be used by the civilian business sectors."
—William G. Pagonis, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Retired) and former president of Sears Logistics Services
"Business Agility transcends well beyond the mere 'must read' to a definitive 'must do.' Michael provides a thought-filled road map to transform any organization into an agile and responsive team capable of winning in today's complex and ever-changing marketplace."
—Steve Poplawski, SVP Logistics & Supply Chain, True Value Company
"Given the global economic crisis, now more than ever, agility is at the top of every company's most wanted list. This book carefully lays out practical approaches to finding the right balance for your organization between efficiency and responsiveness. Current business examples and historical references help describe and define approaches to leaping ahead and reaping the ultimate rewards of not just surviving, but thriving in today's very challenging global business environment."
—John C. Moon, Corporate Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Johnson Outdoors, Inc.
"The concept of agility has been around for some years, but this is where I first saw it in terms of hard and well-defined business benefits. It is a highly accessible book, taking the reader through all these concepts in a manner that puts the topic across in simple terms."
—Alagu Balaraman, Vice President & Process Architect, Britannia Industries Ltd.
Review
"In this guide for executives, Hugos, a business agility and agile IT system practitioner and speaker, explains why responsiveness to consumer needs is now more important to successful organizations than industrial efficiency in today's global marketplace." (Book News, May 2009)
Synopsis
This book discusses the three fundamental process loops that drive an agile enterprise and how they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates profits in a high change economy. It provides strategies for innovative and pragmatic use of people, process, and technology to drive operations in an agile enterprise. It also reveals the principles of the agile enterprise, backed by real world case studies from the author's own experience provided to illustrate a proven and practical approach for organizations that wish to become agile. Each chapter contains diagrams, charts, and lists to emphasize and summarize the important points and concepts.
Synopsis
The relentless pursuit of industrial efficiency no longer yields the profits it once did because it requires a level of business predictability that no longer exists. Instead, the Internet and global video and telecom systems provide a massive and continuous flow of data that causes the whole world to behave like a giant stock market, with all the volatility and uncertainty that goes along with such markets. Responsiveness now trumps efficiency
.By being responsive to the evolving needs and desires of specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and services in a tailored blanket of value-added services to consistently earn an additional four percent or more gross margin than they would otherwise earn for the product or service alone. This customer and market specialization is the most promising and the most sustainable source of profits in our fluid, real-time economy.
Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, Sustainable Prosperity discusses the three fundamental process loops that drive an agile enterprise and how they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates profits in a high-change economy. Providing strategies for innovative and pragmatic use of people, process, and technology to drive operations in an agile enterprise, this book reveals the principles of the agile enterprise, backed by real-world case studies from the author's own experience.
Michael Hugos is a speaker, writer, and practitioner in IT and business agility, and agile system development methods. He writes a column for Computerworld and a blog titled "Doing Business in Real Time" for CIO magazine.
Synopsis
Business Agility
Business agility determines whether your organi-zation will become a victim of our difficult economic times or if it will learn to reap new profits by continually responding to changing market conditions and evolving customer desires.
Author and business agility practitioner Michael Hugos explains that for everything from blue jeans to fuel oil and hotel rooms to accounting services, customers are willing to pay slightly higher prices for products and services if they are responsive to their needs. This breakthrough guide is your company's how-to manual for putting this profit transformation to work. Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World outlines world-class approaches every "C-level" executive can employ to achieve competitive advantages and greater profitability.
This book discusses:
Powerful trends shaping business and our lives in this century
Challenges we must confront and master
Practical principles, strategies, and technologies available to address these challenges
Three underlying feedback loops that drive all responsive organizations
Best ways to use technology to empower your people
Two central themes for making a responsive organization happen: desire and innovation
Case study examples from the author's own experience to illustrate concepts of responsiveness and techniques of agility
Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World is a succinct guide and road map for becoming more responsive, agile, and better positioned to deal with ongoing and constant change. Mykolas Rambus of Forbes Media observed, "Michael delivers a host of actionable new ideas for organizations who 'get' business agility, and an unflattering view of the future for those who don't. His fresh insights on how to win in today's turbulent marketplace are more relevant than ever."
About the Author
Michael H. Hugos is a thinker, speaker, and practitioner of business agility and agile IT system development methods. He spent six years as chief information officer (CIO) for Network Services Co., a multibillion-dollar national distribution cooperative where he developed a suite of supply chain and e-business systems that transformed the company's business model from old-line distributor to value-added provider of products and supply chain services. He is a two-time winner of the CIO 100 Award, and a recipient of the InformationWeek 500 Award and the Premier 100 Award for career achievement. He is also author of Building the Real-Time Enterprise and Essentials of Supply Chain Management, Second Edition, both published by Wiley.
Table of Contents
1. Responsiveness Trumps Efficiency.The World Behaves Like A Stock Market.
Efficiency Is Only Half of the Equation.
Traditional Business Models Are Coming Up Short.
Efficiency Without Responsiveness Will Kill Your Company.
Customer Relationships Are the Most Valuable Asset.
The Value-Added Paper Cup.
A Most Amazing Innovation.
Using Information Technology to Make Money.
All Products and Services Have Two Components.
Notes.
2. Generating Alpha.
Valued-Added Services and Entrepreneurial Employees Generate Alpha.
Escape from the Trap of Commoditized Jobs.
Welcome to the First World – Now Your Labor Rates Are Too High.
New Opportunities to Create Value.
Responsiveness Enables A Higher Standard of Living.
Fix the Opportunity Gap.
Profit Potential of the Self-Adjusting Feedback Loop.
Toward a Responsive Business Operating Strategy.
Use People and Computers Each for Their Strengths.
Notes.
3. Principles of the Responsive Organization.
More Coordination, Less Control.
End of Control As We Know It – The Dyanmics of Swarming.
Leadership for the Responsive Organization.
Dynamics of the Responsive Organization.
Structure of the Resposive Organization.
Notes.
4. Speed, Simplicity, and Boldness.
Five Themes from The Art of War.
Insights from People Who Have Been There.
Observe – Orient – Decide – Act.
Maneuver Warfare.
Modern Warfighting.
Notes.
5. Strategically Focused, Tactically Responsive.
Awareness Drives Effective Strategy (Loop 1).
Balancing Means Continuous Improvement (Loop 2).
Agility Means Move It or Lose (Loop 3).
Reinforcing Feedback for Creating Something New.
Pulling It All Together.
A Formula to Measure Business Responsiveness.
Thoughts on a Formula for Business Responsiveness.
Serious Games.
Notes.
6. Thriving in a Competitive, Fast-Paced World.
Leadership in the Old World and the New.
Agility and Innovation Are Related to Leadership Practices.
Three Applications with Great Potential.
Principles of Combined Arms Applied to Business.
A Supply Chain Game.
Agile Systems for Responsive Operations.
IT Agility Enables Business Innovation.
Notes.
7. Ya Gotta Wanna.
We Are Capable of Great Things.
Executive Behavior Defines the Workplace.
Thoughts on the Practice of Agility.
Agile Is Not Easy.
The 30-Day Blitz, IT Agility in Action.
Agility Means Simple Things Done Well, Not Complex Things Done Fast.
Agility Has a Tempo that Ebbs and Flows.
Notes.
8. The Essence of Innovation.
How to Get Inspired.
The Challenge of Making Something New.
Art, Sports, and Business All Blend Together.
Innovation is a Constant Mixing of Ideas.
Picture of a Responsive Company.
Five Key Characteristics of the Responsive Organization.
Sustainable Prosperity.
Appendix A. Executive Checklist For Monitoring Development Projects.
1. Goodness of System Design.
2. Progress Made Developing the System.
3. Competence and Confidence of People on the Project.
Notes.
Appendix B. Seven Strategic Guidelines For Designing Systems.
Note.