Business Agility 2001+

Business agility is an interpretation of agility that emerged in 2001. A large number of companies are now naming business agility as the value of their products and services. The term is being used to describe the benefit from, for example:-

Adaptive infrastructures - Business intelligence - Business process management - Collaborative working - Customer relationship management - Data mobility - E-learning - Employee empowerment - Enterprise integration - Enterprise modelling - Flexible working - Information management - IP convergence - Knowledge management - Mobile working - Outsourcing - Organisational resilience - Rapid application development - Supply chain integration - System security - Unified messaging - Web services and XML.

"Business agility" has certainly captured attention. The companies making the these propositions include British Telecom, Cisco, Gartner, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Nortel and SAP.

However, only a few of the companies naming business agility explain why it has value. Does "business agility" just sound good, or is there an underlying meaning? To answer this question Agility International undertook a review of business agility as used in recent marketing propositions, commentaries and published reports.

We found that the core value of business agility is organisational adaptability. It allows an organisation rapidly to adapt to the changing demands of its customers and its business environment. It operates across strategy, operations, infrastructure, information and knowledge, and people. And like agility, its goal is increased competitiveness in conditions of change.

We observed that business agility is applied predominately in the context of e-business and the networked enterprise that we described in our 1998 book Agile Networking.

Our analysis also showed that at the heart of business agility is the earlier-developed agility principle of Mastering Change (see page 1). This is significant: because business agility encompasses the agility principle of Mastering Change, it inherits a considerable body of valuable knowledge and practices about organisational adaptability. For example:

• Companies wanting to use business agility as a value proposition for their products have access to established messages and examples developed under agility.
• Organisations attracted by the term business agility and wishing to explore what it would mean for them can refer to the body of strategies, models, processes and best practices developed in the work on agility.
• Business agility widens from its current expression principally as a proposition to do with technology, to a more fundamental strategic competency that also involves a range of people, process, business and organisational factors.

Agility International combines thought leadership with innovative content around agility and business agility. Go here to learn more about us and the people we have worked with.