MÖBIUS Related

August

Agility : survival kit for any company

Recently, quite some organisations have found themselves in a spiral of economic recession, reorganisation and financial turbulence. In the meantime it became clear that the financial crisis has caused a tsunami that is spreading into the industry and the services sector, and that will eventually hit the public sector hard.

Simultaneously, what successful managers know for a long time yet, has been confirmed: survival in a turbulent environment is only possible when devotion and innovation are sufficiently present, en – last but not least – a dash of agility in organisation, processes and underlying systems.

A few examples to confirm this statement:

> In case of a considerable drop in the demand for certain products or services, it is important that the capacity of the processes can be decreased as soon as possible in order to control the cost structure. This can only be done by direct steering from the strategical level and a lot of flexibility in the processes and organisation.

> Also important: in case of a considerable increase of the demand, the capacity of these same processes needs also to be increased again. Without any doubt, every manager once must have dreamt about a ‘start-stop-function’ for the processes that allows the running of the process (and the costs) only when it is required.

> Marketparadigms change: sectors that are limited by their capacity in times of boom (and thus impose their will to the market), become the toy of unpredictable marketevolutions.

> Uncertainty and restlessness increase stress with employees in the organisation: short steeringloops, lots of communication and innovative impulses are crucial. Organisations with a high degree of agility are clearly much better equipped to face above mentioned challenges. These organisations will get stronger out of the crisis and will gain quite some marketshare.

With this second edition of August, we hope to give you some valuable input for your survival kit!

AUGUST is a 6-monthly magazine in Dutch that, detached from hypes, witticisms and dogmas seeks for techniques, insights and concepts that can make an organisation really operational in dynamic, economic and social context.

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I wish you lots of reading and listening pleasure.

Prof. dr. ir. Hendrik Vanmaele