Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) [Hardcover]

Michael H. Hugos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2009 | Series: Microsoft Executive Leadership Series (Book 12)

The relentless pursuit of industrial efficiency no longer yields the profits it once did because it requires a level of business predictability that no longer exists. Instead, the Internet and global video and telecom systems provide a massive and continuous flow of data that causes the whole world to behave like a giant stock market, with all the volatility and uncertainty that goes along with such markets. Responsiveness now trumps efficiency.

By being responsive to the evolving needs and desires of specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and services in a tailored blanket of value-added services to consistently earn an additional four percent or more gross margin than they would otherwise earn for the product or service alone. This customer and market specialization is the most promising and the most sustainable source of profits in our fluid, real-time economy.

Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, Sustainable Prosperity discusses the three fundamental process loops that drive an agile enterprise and how they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates profits in a high-change economy. Providing strategies for innovative and pragmatic use of people, process, and technology to drive operations in an agile enterprise, this book reveals the principles of the agile enterprise, backed by real-world case studies from the author's own experience.

Michael Hugos is a speaker, writer, and practitioner in IT and business agility, and agile system development methods. He writes a column for Computerworld and a blog titled "Doing Business in Real Time" for CIO magazine.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this guide for executives, Hugos, a business agility and agile IT system practitioner and speaker, explains why responsiveness to consumer needs is now more important to successful organizations than industrial efficiency in today's global marketplace." (Book News, May 2009)

From the Inside Flap

Business Agility

Business agility determines whether your organi-zation will become a victim of our difficult economic times or if it will learn to reap new profits by continually responding to changing market conditions and evolving customer desires.

Author and business agility practitioner Michael Hugos explains that for everything from blue jeans to fuel oil and hotel rooms to accounting services, customers are willing to pay slightly higher prices for products and services if they are responsive to their needs. This breakthrough guide is your company's how-to manual for putting this profit transformation to work. Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World outlines world-class approaches every "C-level" executive can employ to achieve competitive advantages and greater profitability.

This book discusses:

• Powerful trends shaping business and our lives in this century

• Challenges we must confront and master

• Practical principles, strategies, and technologies available to address these challenges

• Three underlying feedback loops that drive all responsive organizations

• Best ways to use technology to empower your people

• Two central themes for making a responsive organization happen: desire and innovation

• Case study examples from the author's own experience to illustrate concepts of responsiveness and techniques of agility

Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World is a succinct guide and road map for becoming more responsive, agile, and better positioned to deal with ongoing and constant change. Mykolas Rambus of Forbes Media observed, "Michael delivers a host of actionable new ideas for organizations who 'get' business agility, and an unflattering view of the future for those who don't. His fresh insights on how to win in today's turbulent marketplace are more relevant than ever."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 162 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047041345X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470413456
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm an author, speaker, award-winning CIO and principal at Center for Systems Innovation [c4si]. I work with clients to find elegant solutions to complex problems, with focus in supply chains, IT and business agility, and new business ventures. Earlier I spent six years as CIO of a national distribution organization where I developed the suite of supply chain and e-business systems that transformed the company's operations and revenue model. For this work I won the CIO 100 Award for resourcefulness, the InformationWeek 500 Award for innovation and the Computerworld Premier 100 Award for career achievement.

Google searches on "business agility", "IT agility" and "agile organization" return articles of mine on the first page. I've spoken at conferences and taught seminars in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. I write a blog for CIO magazine titled "Doing Business in Real Time" and have authored and co-authored seven books including my popular Essentials of Supply Chain Management, and my newest book - Business in the Cloud: What Every Business Needs to Know about Cloud Computing. I earned my MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

I can be reached via my website - www.MichaelHugos.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Business Agility a must in the Information Economy, August 19, 2009

By 

William E. Mellor - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) (Hardcover)

This is the third book I've read by Mr. Hugos and he never disappoints! Writing in an entertaining style that is easy to understand, informative without being pedantic Mr. Hugos skillfully delivers on making business perform and more profitable in the information economy. I have run a business for a quarter century in an industry where the operative buzz word has always been urgency but after reading Business Agility Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive world my philosophy of conducting business and my understanding of how businesses should operate have been fundamentally changed.

By introducing and /or elaborating on three concepts OODA, Six Sigma, and Mr. Hugos' own DDB Define Design Build, and melding them all together in a cohesive plan to attain business agility he has delivered a powerful new book to the bible on how to properly conduct business, and how to stretch the almighty profit margin!

The concepts of business agility are cleverly conveyed by his use of drawing analogies from how a sun flower functions to the military tactics of great military minds of the past. While this book was probably written with the idea of making a large enterprise more nimble (it takes a while to turn an ocean liner) I see where the ideas and concepts presented will be useful in my small business (canoes have to be navigated too!)

In this book Mr. Hugos has shown how the old hierarchical controlling ways of doing business should be, must be replaced with a coordinated network approach. An approach that enables innovation, and promotes visibility, training and creates motivation. In this book Mr. Hugos has created a blue print to transform any organization from a staid assembly line, monolithic dinosaur to a dynamic, responsive and adaptive modern firm capable of growing the bottom line.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exceptional Guide to Sustainable Prosperity, August 10, 2009

By 

Steve Koji - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) (Hardcover)

Like a welder `striking an arc', Michael Hugos' clear conversational-style writing brilliantly lights up the topic - Business Agility. And like the steady hand of a welder, he proceeds to fuse the customer and the provider together almost seamlessly through the proper utilization of IT. From his initial `business triage' (how can we help the most the fastest?) through his 10/4 approach (at a cost 10 times less than the competition and 4 times faster than the competition) he lays out a clear line of attack that will assist all business executives with moving a company's competitive edge forward.

This book provides a comprehensive conceptual framework to base improving agility and responsiveness upon. It is backed up with detailed real-life contemporary examples clearly illustrating improved profitability in today's rapidly changing global business environment. It is notable that the impetus this approach provides, adds velocity to projects and companies alike. When accomplished in series, the plan adds sustainable momentum through continuing closer, stronger, more dynamic customer relations, all leading to opportunities for improving top and bottom lines. This is an exceptional guide to - Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World - that no one else has put together!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading to the end - Valuable, easy-to-apply rules of thumb, August 8, 2009

By 

Peter A. Alsberg (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) (Hardcover)

My test of a good business book is to ask the question: "will I be doing differently something significant as a result of reading this book?" Hugos passed the test. Most people who read this book will be sharp, interested in improving their game, and seeking higher levels of awareness. They will get the basic Business Agility premise and understand its broad implications a few pages into the book - certainly by the end of chapter 1. That's typical for business books, most of which never get read beyond page 50.

What I found unusual in Business Agility is that the second half of the book delivered much of the take-home value for me. Hugos populates the last half of the book with simple rules of thumb to help the reader achieve business agility. They are clear, easy to understand, easy to apply, and obvious (once Hugos points them out to you). They make it worth while to read to the end.