Business agility
A different method for managing the organisation of production grappling with innovation
Business management while keeping pace with innovation, above all digital innovation, is a challenge for those entrepreneurs and managers who on one hand have to balance the books and on the other to grow a company dealing with the changing complexity of the moment. New work methodologies are also needed to meet these goals, but it isn’t so easy to identify and put them in practice.
Neil Perkin reflects on – and offers a solution to – these issues in his Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age, now published in Italian as Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale courtesy of Marco Calzolari.
It is precisely the “digital age” that represents the driver for change, according to the author who conceived the ‘agile’ working method as a response to the stall encountered by many businesses faced with the digitalisation of processes and production methods. According to Perkin, many companies are in this condition because they are obstructed by outdated working methods, decision-making processes that aren’t sufficiently horizontal and inhibit innovation: a company culture, in other words, that rewards conformity and instantaneous efficiency rather than entrepreneurship and the desire to learn.
All this underpins the proposal of “Agile Transformation”, indicated as a pathway for creating businesses able to reshape themselves continuously according to the needs of clients and their responses, who work in “horizontal and flexible” groups, supported by technology and who know how to use their resources in a way that can continuously be adapted to the future.
After an extended introduction by Calzolari, the book guides readers starting from the need for a new business “operating system”, through a definition and in-depth look at the characteristics of the “agile business”, to a series of crucial points: the right innovation, the need to change change management, a new approach to businesses targets and management.
Perkin’s book should be read attentively, and the implementation of its indications certainly at least attempted. In his introduction, Calzolari writes: “The true potential of the ‘agile movement’ lies in sharing the authentic experiences of people with similar needs and applying a manifest ‘practical wisdom’ based on methods that bring out the quality of every professional”.
Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale
Neil Perkin
Guerini Next, 2023
A different method for managing the organisation of production grappling with innovation
Business management while keeping pace with innovation, above all digital innovation, is a challenge for those entrepreneurs and managers who on one hand have to balance the books and on the other to grow a company dealing with the changing complexity of the moment. New work methodologies are also needed to meet these goals, but it isn’t so easy to identify and put them in practice.
Neil Perkin reflects on – and offers a solution to – these issues in his Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age, now published in Italian as Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale courtesy of Marco Calzolari.
It is precisely the “digital age” that represents the driver for change, according to the author who conceived the ‘agile’ working method as a response to the stall encountered by many businesses faced with the digitalisation of processes and production methods. According to Perkin, many companies are in this condition because they are obstructed by outdated working methods, decision-making processes that aren’t sufficiently horizontal and inhibit innovation: a company culture, in other words, that rewards conformity and instantaneous efficiency rather than entrepreneurship and the desire to learn.
All this underpins the proposal of “Agile Transformation”, indicated as a pathway for creating businesses able to reshape themselves continuously according to the needs of clients and their responses, who work in “horizontal and flexible” groups, supported by technology and who know how to use their resources in a way that can continuously be adapted to the future.
After an extended introduction by Calzolari, the book guides readers starting from the need for a new business “operating system”, through a definition and in-depth look at the characteristics of the “agile business”, to a series of crucial points: the right innovation, the need to change change management, a new approach to businesses targets and management.
Perkin’s book should be read attentively, and the implementation of its indications certainly at least attempted. In his introduction, Calzolari writes: “The true potential of the ‘agile movement’ lies in sharing the authentic experiences of people with similar needs and applying a manifest ‘practical wisdom’ based on methods that bring out the quality of every professional”.
Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale
Neil Perkin
Guerini Next, 2023