Systemic Flexibility and Business Agility

This book provides a conceptual framework for systemic flexibility and business agility, drawing on a basis of research/case applications in various types of flexibility and agility in business. The selected papers address a variety of issues concerning the theme of systemic flexibility and business agility and are organized into following five parts: (i) Systemic and Strategic Flexibility; (ii) Information and Business Agility; (iii) Flexibility, Innovation and Business Excellence; (iv) Flexibility in Value and Supply Chains; and(v) Financial Flexibility and Mergers & Acquisitions.

Flexibility and agility in business are emerging as key dimensions of business excellence that encompass the requirements of both choice and speed. The two concepts, flexibility and agility, have been used in multiple ways and often interchangeably, both in literature and in practice. The growing need for flexibility/agility in business can be seen from reactive as well as proactive perspectives. A business enterprise is expected to possess reactive flexibility/ agility (as adaptability and responsiveness) in order to cope with the changing and uncertain business environment. It may also endeavor to intentionally generate flexibility/agility as a strategic change in a variety of ways, such as leadership change, reengineering, innovation in products and processes, use of information and communication technology, and learning orientation.

Professor Sushil is Abdulaziz Alsagar Chair Professor (Professor of Strategic, Flexible Systems and Technology Management), and Chair, Strategic Management Group at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. He has served as Visiting Professor and delivered seminars in many leading universities; some representative ones are University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, among others. He is an active researcher and supervised more than 50 doctoral dissertations. He is having eighteen books to his credit in the areas of Flexibility, Strategy, Systems Thinking, and Technology Management. He has over 250 papers in various refereed journals and conferences. He has pioneered the area of ‘Flexible Systems Management’ and made original contributions to the field of knowledge in the form of interpretive approaches in management. He is the Founder Editor-in-chief ofGlobal Journal of Flexible Systems Management and serving on the Editorial Boards of leading international journals. He is the Founder President of the professional body, ‘Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management’. Currently he is serving as Independent Director on the Boards of RINL, HSCC, and River Engineering.

Gerhard Chroust is Professor Emeritus for Systems Engineering and Automation, Institute of System Sciences, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. From 1992 until 2007 he was Professor for 'Systems Engineering and Automation' at the Kepler University of Linz and Department Head of the Department (in 2004 transferred into an Institute) of Systems Engineering and Automation from 1992 until 2007. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the IFSR Newsletter, Chairperson of the Editorial Board of the Book Series of the Austrian Computer Society (OCG), and Editorial Board Member of several journals. He has written, co-authored and edited a dozen books and over 400 articles, papers and other publications. His research interests are in the fields of Software Engineering (Representation and Enactment of Software Process Models, Quality and Improvement of Development Processes), Systems Science and Systemic Aspects of Engineering, Emergence, History of Computers and Information Technology, and Human Aspects of Software Development.