Agile organisations are those display Business Agility

Business agility refers to distinct qualities that allow organisations to respond rapidly to changes in the internal and external environment without losing momentum or vision. Adaptability, flexibility and balance are three qualities essential to long-term business agility.

Business agility is important for firms looking to survive long-term and who work in quick-paced industries. Innovation is often the key to maintaining long-term business agility. Companies that don’t innovate and rely on ‘proven’ methods of doing things often find themselves falling behind the competition because they can’t adapt quickly enough to shifts in the environment.

From an HR perspective, agility is about ensuring the human capital in the organisation have the skills and abilities to respond quickly to new developments  and the infrastructure and processes to mobilise this human capital into action as efficiently as possible.

Companies may display business agility at certain times, in which case the agility is a form of crisis response, or the company may have business agility built into its structure.

Agile organisations can differ from traditional bureaucratic organisations in many ways, such as in fluidity of role definitions and a lack of long-term competitive advantage – generally agile organisations will pursue a program of short-term competitive advantages, which are then neutralised, before moving onto the next

Four useful concepts when discussing business agility include interactions, co-evolution, self-organisation and the edge of chaos

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