There are three different ways frms are agile. They can be agile within their operations. That’s kind of the Toyota story or the Southwest Air story; a clearly defned industry. You’re constantly spotting and seizing opportunities quicker than your rivals.
The second way is through portfolio agility. You can pull resources from slower declining businesses and put them against faster growing or more promising opportunities.
A third category is what I call strategic agility, and that’s seizing the opportunities that arise—golden opportunities that arise every so often. That might be entering the market when the [Berlin] Wall falls or [seizing] the opportunity to buy assets on the cheap, as is possible in many industries right now in the current downturn. It’s the ability to seize those rare opportunities when they arise.
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