The Greatest Innovation Since the Assembly Line: Powerful Strategies for Business Agility [Paperback]

Michael Hugos (Author), Michael H. Hugos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2008

The relentless pursuit of efficiency no longer yields the profits it once did because it requires a level of business predictability that no longer exists. In our high change, global economy responsiveness now trumps efficiency.

The agile enterprise is an organization that uses responsiveness to make profits from a hundred small adjustments every day and from occasional big wins as opportunities arise. Soon, those companies that cannot make money from a hundred small adjustments and some occasional big wins will hardly be profitable at all.

Learn the three key operating processes employed by the agile enterprise and see how they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates profits in a high change economy. See strategies for the innovative and pragmatic use of people, process and technology that enable the agile enterprise to emerge. Case study examples from the author's own experience are provided to illustrate a proven and practical approach for organizations that wish to become agile and the benefits they will reap from doing so.

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Mike Hugos provides simple, straight forward ideas, concepts, examples and exhibits that have you nodding your head in agreement page after page. Each time you finish a section you are asking yourself "why aren't we doing more of this?" His practical approach and methodologies to attaining agility is actually agile in itself.
--Frank W. Enfanto, Vice President,
Blue Cross Blue Shield, Massachusetts

In today's global marketplace, the emphasis for any organization must be on responsiveness to changing market conditions. Ignore this fact and your organization will be in a race to the bottom. Hugos provides a succinct roadmap for becoming more responsive, agile, and ultimately better positioned to deal with the one business constant we all face: change.
--Ken Burbary, SVP, Campbell Ewald, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This book is the product of years of reading, thinking, doing, talking with others, and more doing. My aim is to create a concise and highly readable discourse on the topic of business agility.

In a hyper-competitive global economy such as the one that is now emerging, the relentless quest for efficiency will work for only the two or three most efficient players in any industry. What then will all the other companies in those industries do to survive and even thrive? The answer for them is to be "efficient enough," but then concentrate, instead of just on efficiency, on responsiveness, for that's where real competitive advantage lies in the 21st century.

By being responsive to the needs and desires of specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and services in a blanket of value-added services to consistently earn an additional two to four percent (and sometimes more) in 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.

I have had the opportunity to put many of the ideas in this book to actual use in business situations and found out what works and what does not. The material presented here is a mix of both theory and practice based on real world experience.

Michael Hugos
Chicago, Illinois USA

About the Author

Michael Hugos is CIO at Large and business agility coach at the Center for Systems Innovation. He recently spent six years as Chief Information Officer at Network Services Company, an $8 billion distribution organization, where he guided development and rollout of a suite of e-business and supply chain systems that changed their business model from an old-line distributor to a value-added provider of products and supply chain services. In 2003 and 2005 he was awarded the CIO 100 Award for this work and in 2006 he was awarded the Premier 100 Award for career achievement. Prior to this he was a practice director for Covansys, a global IT services provider.

He is a columnist for Computerworld and writes a blog for CIO magazine titled "Doing Business in Real Time." Other books of his include: Building the Real-Time Enterprise: An Executive Briefing; Essentials of Supply Chain Management, 2nd Ed.; and CIO Best Practices: Enabling Strategic Value with Information Technology. He is a speaker at business and IT industry conferences and holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Product Details

• Paperback: 127 pages
• Publisher: Meghan-Kiffer Press (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929652398
• ISBN-13: 978-0929652399
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,373,528 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