Business Agility / Microsoft Executive Circle (PDF)

The relentless pursuit of industrial efficiency no longer yields
the profits it once did because it requires a level of business
predictability that no longer exists. Instead, the Internet and
global video and telecom systems provide a massive and continuous
flow of data that causes the whole world to behave like a giant
stock market, with all the volatility and uncertainty that goes
along with such markets. Responsiveness now trumps
efficiency.

By being responsive to the evolving needs and desires of
specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and
services in a tailored blanket of value-added services to
consistently earn an additional four percent or more gross margin
than they would otherwise earn for the product or service alone.
This customer and market specialization is the most promising and
the most sustainable source of profits in our fluid, real-time
economy.

Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership
Series, Business Agility discusses the three
fundamental process loops that drive an agile enterprise and how
they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates
profits in a high-change economy. Providing strategies for
innovative and pragmatic use of people, process, and technology to
drive operations in an agile enterprise, this book reveals the
principles of the agile enterprise, backed by real-world case
studies from the author's own experience.

Michael Hugos is a speaker, writer, and practitioner in IT and
business agility, and agile system development methods. He writes a
column for Computerworld and a blog titled "Doing Business
in Real Time" for CIO magazine.