Organisational Agility Research Report

This European research report reveals six dimensions of organisational agility.  We share a simple index to measure your own organisation’s agility and outline they key areas to focus on to improve it.

“Our survey demonstrates why improving Organisational Agility is important, how it is closely linked to the overall performance of your business and which areas are more crucial than others for improving agility. Our findings also offer concrete suggestions on where and how to start improving your organisation’s level of agility”.

Organisational Agility is achieved by being alert to both internal and environmental changes – opportunities as well as challenges – and the ability to use available resources in a timely, flexible, affordable and relevant manner, in order to respond to those changes effectively.

An agile organisation embraces change by moving quickly, decisively and effectively to anticipate, initiate and take advantage of change, yet remains robust enough to absorb any set-backs. Out of competitive necessity, it successfully exploits opportunities and sustains performance over time, as the environment changes by absorbing and reacting to major disruptions, yet avoiding major collisions. Thus agility is not just about being fast, but also entails the capacity to remain in touch with customer needs.

“Take the metaphor of a racing yacht competition: … team members are clear about the direction and challenges, and trust the skipper’s decisions, yet are always on the lookout for any danger, opportunities, and the actions of competing vessels, continuously trying new ways to become faster and outperform their close competitors. Therefore, it’s essential to stack the deck in your favour by not only planning for the unexpected, but be ready to change course quickly if and when necessary…

OE Cam participated in this research as part of Space Management Consulting, (formerly Allied Consultants Europe).  Space Consulting is a strategic partnership of nine leading European management consulting firms, experts in the fields of strategy, organisation change and business performance.  This research report is based on more than 500 questionnaires received during March and April 2010 from clients and business contacts. We would like to thank everyone for their support and for giving us their valuable time and opinion on this “new normal” for our Organisational Agility survey.

To download the report, please complete the form opposite.  For more information about organisational agility, please contact Gary Ashton at gary.ashton@oecam.com