The Agility Advantage How to Identify and Act on Opportunities in a Fast-Changing World

by Setili, Amanda

• ISBN13: 9781118836385
• ISBN10: 1118836383
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-09-22
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

How to win market leadership in a fast-changing world

In the past, companies could pick a strategy and stick with it, maintaining a competitive edge for years. But today, companies surge ahead, fall behind, or even disappear in mere months. If you and your company are going to thrive for the long run, you need to continuously evolve, change, and stay a step ahead of your competition.

The ability to see and capitalize on new opportunities is the cornerstone of agility. Successful technology-based firms like Google, Tesla,  and Amazon have all mastered agility within their core business practices, but companies in any sector can—and must—learn to spot new opportunities and make the right choices about what to invest in, what to change, and what to abandon.

The Agility Advantage first shows how to identify those aspects of your business where agility is most crucial—where the business environment is changing fast—and which elements have the  greatest impact on the customer’s decision to buy. Amanda Setili then shows how to master the three components of agility:

• Market agility: Gain ideas from your most demanding and forward-thinking customers and from outside your industry.  Engage, observe, and mix with customers to identify the opportunities created by their changing demands.
• Decision agility: Anticipate the changes that may affect you and turn even troubling trends into opportunities. Design your strategy to maximize learning and to manage risk.  Generate diverse alternatives and make fast, fact-based decisions about which to pursue.
• Execution agility:   Build new capabilities, shed what doesn’t fit, and take the first steps in a new direction. Experiment, then reinforce and build on what works. Enlist and inspire your organization around a compelling purpose and grant employees the autonomy and resources to continuously adapt and adjust course.  

The future will present more opportunities but narrower windows to capture them. With a wealth of valuable information and practical strategies, The Agility Advantage is essential reading to help any organization adapt and thrive—both today and tomorrow.

Author Biography

AMANDA SETILI is managing partner of strategy consulting firm Setili & Associates, whose clients include Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, and Walmart. She previously held positions with McKinsey & Company and Kimberly-Clark, and served as an executive with two successful disruptive technology startups, in the United States and Malaysia. Setili is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Harvard Business School and has taught as an adjunct professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information, please visit www.setili.com

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 What Is Agility—and Why Is It Valuable? 1

2 See Through Your Customers’ Eyes: How to See What Your Competitor Can’t 21

3 Right Customers, Right Value, Right Time: Identify Your Most Attractive Customers and Pivot with Them 43

4 Love the Problem: Dig Deep to Find New Insights 67

5 Turn Trends into Opportunities: Stop Preparing for the Future and Create It 89

6 Create Breakthrough Strategies: Generate Creative Alternatives for Capitalizing on the Changes You See 113

7 Manage Uncertainty: Be Courageous, Anticipate What Might Happen, and Address Risks Head-On 139

8 Turning a Strategic Corner: Take the First Steps, Shed What Doesn’t Fit, Experiment, and Reinforce 161

9 Agility as a Way of Life: Leverage the Power of Purpose, Autonomy, and Continuous Adaptation 185

Conclusion 209

Notes 211

Acknowledgments 221

About the Author 225

Index 227