Change factors requiring agility and implications for IT

Abstract

The current highly dynamic business environment requires businesses to be agile. Business agility is the ability to swiftly and easily change businesses and business processes beyond the normal level of flexibility to effectively manage unpredictable external and internal changes. This study reports on a crossindustry analysis of change factors requiring agility and assesses agility gaps that companies are facing in four industry sectors in the Netherlands. A framework was constructed to measure the perceived gaps between the current level of business agility and the required level of business agility. The questionnaire and in-depth interviews held reveal that today's businesses perceive to lack the agility required to quickly respond to changes, whose speed and requirements are difficult to predict. The paper presents rankings of generic and sector-specific agility gaps. These show that although some generic change factors requiring agility exist, the change factors requiring agility that cause agility gaps differ across industry sectors. Among the factors that enable or hinder business agility, the existence of inflexible legacy systems is perceived to be a very important disabler in achieving more business agility. A number of basic principles and directions are discussed to transform Information Technology from barrier into key enabler for increased agility in organizations and business networks.

Organizational Agility: The Key to Organizational Success

“…Sensing refers to an organization's ability to detect, capture and interpret organizational opportunities (Seo & Paz 2008). Responding represents an organizational ability to mobilize and transform resources to react to the opportunities that it senses (Gattiker et al, 2005;Oosterhout et al, 2006). These two capabilities must be aligned to optimally obtain OA (Overby et al, 2006).…”

Dimensions of Organizational Agility in the Software and IT Service Industry – Insights from an Empirical Investigation

“…To do so, a firm needs an "integrated and holistic approach (including) IT, business processes, enterprise governance, organizational structure and culture" (Demirkan et al, 2008, p. 360). Especially in the software and IT service industry, such an "integrated approach" comprises two components: systems agility (having an IT infrastructure able to meet business changes) and business agility (ability to change the business itself) (Goodhue et al, 2009;van Oosterhout et al, 2006). Hence, to be successful in achieving organizational agility, organizations have to align their business and IT/IS (Strohmaier & Rollett, 2005).…”

“…Surprisingly, despite the ongoing research in this topic, we lack a clearly defined framework for explaining agility from an organizational perspective (Sherehiy, Karwowski, & Layer, 2007). Although several frameworks are available, they are ambiguous and vary among each other, which suggests that we lack consensus about the determinants and dimensions of organizational agility (Charbonnier-Voirin, 2011;van Oosterhout, Waarts, & van Hillegersberg, 2006;Wendler, 2013b). As Charbonnier-Voirin (2011, p. 122) puts it, "this lack of precision further restricts the potential for operationalization", which limits the applicability of research results in practice.…”

The Role of Organizational Agility in Enhancing Organizational Excellence: A Study on Telecommunications Sector in Egypt

“…Responding represents an organizational ability to mobilize and transform resources to react to the opportunities that it senses (Gattiker et al, 2005;Oosterhout et al, 2006). These two capabilities must be aligned to optimally obtain OA.…”