Model maps path to long term business sustainability

Leading Australian and New Zealand organisations have shared their inner workings in a world first study to understand the value and elements of organisational agility.

Research for the collaborative PwC and the Faculty of Business and Economics study has involved 60 executives from 18 organisations that span some of the highest profile organisation in Australia and New Zealand including ASX top 50 to government departments and private businesses. The businesses represent a broad cross section of industries including mining, retail, health and technology.

PwC partner Richard Shackcloth says, ?Agility is relevant to all organisations irrespective of size, structure or sector.?

?Agility is relevant to all organisations irrespective of size, structure or sector? PwC?s Richard Shackcloth

?It is a multi-dimensional capability that enables organisations to respond quickly to change. It is a ?must have? not a ?like to have? capability for any business that wants to pre-empt, adapt and survive in the current environment where change is constant.?

Academically, change and transformation have been the topic of conversation for more than 75 years according to Professor Graham Sewell.

?Kurt Lewin was the first to develop a model of organisational transformation in 1947. Since then we?ve seen several different models developed all grounded on the core assumptions that stability is achievable and desirable, employees need to be convinced of change and that organisational development must be anchored by a new, replacement vision of stability.?

?But times have changed and our research has confirmed that existing models fail to provide an up-to-date roadmap for organisations to be agile in an environment where global and local market conditions are changing almost instantaneously. This is not purely ?turbulence? it is permanent change occurring to the ecosystems in which organisations are operating.?

?Earlier models have touched on the concept of agility periodically ? not in a rigorous, holistic fashion- and have been based on reasonably stable operating environments where organisational change was reactive, episodic or incremental. Our model is one for the new millennium, one that will help us to understand explicitly what keeps an organisation agile in the increasingly complex and volatile trading environment.?

The PwC and Faculty newly developed ?HVP Agility Model ? recognises that agility has many dimensions but is based on three core capacities: Horizon, Velocity and Plasticity .?

Mr Shackcloth says, ?In the current environment most businesses accept that discrete and often large scale ?transformation? activities have their place, but there?s always a question around long term sustainability. And as the pace of the business world increases, organisations can feel like they are constantly playing transformation catch-up.?

?The ability to adapt and change is critical to business, but now more than ever before there are a number of key factors that need to inform, direct and hasten the change. Those factors are all dimensions of agility.?

?Research has confirmed that existing models fail to provide an up-to-date roadmap for organisations? ? Professor Graham Sewell

?Agility is hard work to achieve and to maintain, but it is a key to long term sustainability and growth. In nature as in business, it is those that adapt who survive.?

PwC and the University of Melbourne will use the HVP Agility Model and continuing collaborative research to produce an Agility Index as a tool to confirm that agility generates greater shareholder returns. It will allow organisations to review their strengths and weaknesses, track improvement over time and correlate this with overall performance and shareholder returns.

?Most encouragingly, many of the executives we worked with in this study agree there will be enormous benefit in establishing a sound diagnostic to help organisations measure their own agility,?? says Professor Sewell.

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Watch Richard and Graham discuss the research below

PwC & FBE Agility Study from FBE University of Melbourne on Vimeo.

Source: http://benews.unimelb.edu.au/2012/model-maps-path-to-long-term-business-sustainability/

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