The Importance Of Agility In The Workplace

Multi skilled flexible people play a significant role in developing agile enterprises. For most of the twentieth century management has improved by developing new and better systems. Agile firms are less dependent on systems, more dependent on the intelligence and opportunism of people.

- Moitrayee Das Ph.D student,Tata institute Of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Increasingly, firms find themselves, either by design or circumstances, operating in business environments fraught with unprecedented, unparalleled, unrelenting, and largely unpredictable changes. Retaining competitive advantage is a continuous effort by all companies. Millions of words have been written purporting to identify the principles and practices most likely to support firms to gain the desired competitive advantage and thereby enjoy superior profit margins. Despite all the studies that have been done and are still going on, management undoubtedly remains a testing ground where theory, experience, judgment and, sometimes, luck play a role. According to Glenn (2009), approximately 90 per cent of senior executives who took a survey by The Economist's Magazine Intelligence Unit understand that their organizations have to be agile to thrive in the marketplace. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, to be agile is to have a "quick, resourceful and adaptable character" (Agile, 2016).