The new business environment and the pace of penetration of the new digital technologies into every aspect of modern organizations require companies to adopt a different attitude to strategy. Speed and agility have become the new values that have to be implemented by organizations worldwide.
The agile strategy requires Chinese companies to stop for a moment and reflect on how their mindsets should be changed. People in China, however, tend to move too fast and do not have time to stop and reflect. The modern topic of Agility and how it is reflected in China’s business environment were the main topics of an interview with Prof. Michael Zhang (Associate Dean Innovation and Impact) and Prof. Yesha Sivan (Visiting Professor Digital, Innovation and Venture), both from the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics at the CHUK Business School.
Prof. Sivan believes that being agile is the key-to-success for modern companies. “Gone are the days that an organization could plan for a five-year, or even three-year strategic plan in today’s chaotic, dynamic and disruptive business environment. Agility is the new capability to develop a transient competitive advantage with shorter planning and execution cycles.”
According to Prof. Michael Zhang, the Eastern world will have a slight edge over the Western world. “With the underlying philosophy of yin and yang, the East often values high-level epiphanies. The West, on the other hand, often depend on scientific discoveries to guide their decisions. “In regard to agile strategy, once the companies from the East understand the philosophy behind agile development, they will be able to execute it effectively. However, it’d take longer for Western firms which are more skeptical to accept such strategy, and would need to see concrete returns before adopting it.”
In an article published by Prof. Sivan and Raz Heiferman, Senior Digital Transformation Advisor, (Cutter Business Technology Journal Vol. 31, No. 7) they consider the first step of agilification as being able to accept the mental challenge of building flexible buildings.
