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INTRODUCTION
Innovations – and sometimes revolutions – in technology
are not the only challenges facing organizations. Relentless
competitive pressure, ever-more volatile markets,
geo-political uncertainty, and increasingly complex demands
from customers and staff compel organizations to
transform their structures, systems, and processes from
the ground up.
At the heart of all these changes are people in different
stakeholder roles – as customers, suppliers, C-level executives
or operational staff. Highly qualified gen-Y and gen-Z
talents expect work to be challenging and inspiring, with
great pay and career prospects. Most importantly, they
also demand flexible working structures, with the ability
to decide when and where to work. They expect a wide
choice of projects to be available with opportunities for
self-realization. Delivering on these expectations is a huge
challenge for management. Meanwhile, customers expect
their providers to understand and anticipate rapid changes
to formerly entrenched ways of doing business, and to
respond with a continuous stream of innovation.
In an environment like this, how can organizations gain and
keep a distinct competitive advantage? How will managers
engage their staff as peers rather than as subordinates, as
people who demand to work autonomously rather than
taking and carrying out orders? How can the worn catchphrases
on company noticeboards, such as “Be agile” and
“Think digital,” be transformed into real-life organizational
practice?
goetzpartners has created a diagnostic tool, the Agile Performer
Index, which helps organizations to define a clear
starting point for agile action with a view to stepping up
their performance. The tool is complemented by a sophisticated,
science-based set of measures through which
organizations of all sizes can achieve continuous, efficient
and sustainable improvement in their agility.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
THROUGH AGILITY
In the Agile Performer Index, goetzpartners and the
NEOMA Business School clearly demonstrate the correlation
between agility and entrepreneurial success. The more agile
the company, the better it performs financially. The purpose
of the study was to investigate what agility can really do for
organizations. Is it just a temporary trend? With the right
methodology, can agility deliver sustainable success? Or is
it no more than a buzzword, a pretext for questioning deepseated
structures? Resulting from a broad survey among 285
leading European companies that was based on the methodology
of Prof. Christopher G. Worley, a renowned expert on
agility and organizational development, the Agile Performer
Index documents that agility programs are a suitable way for
organizations to achieve lasting performance and competitive
advantage.
Using the index results as their basis, the authors also investigate
how organizations can become more agile, and what
tools they need to do so. It examines which factors contribute
to agility, and highlights the practical interventions
through which organizations can make themselves more
agile. This gives executives a set of practice-oriented recommendations
on how to effectively establish and increase the
agility of their own organizations.
The challenge is to make organizations fit and agile for an already
dynamic present and an even more turbulent future.
The Agile Performer Index testifies how important agility is
for organizations if they wish to be successful. ||
SEBASTIAN OLBERT
Partner, goetzpartners
DR. HANS GERD PRODOEHL
Managing Director, goetzpartners
PROF. CHRISTOPHER G. WORLEY
Professor, NEOMA Business School