Sushil – författare

The need for enterprise flexibility in an era of rapidly advancing technology, increasing competition, and globalization, is apparent. Flexibility can be thought of as an ability of the enterprise to quickly and efficiently respond to market changes and to bring new products and services quickly to the market place. Beyond this definition, a truly flexible enterprise should proactively change the market through its ability to create new and innovative products and services. The proposed book is intended to provide a conceptual framework of ‘Flexible Enterprise’ supported by researches/case applications in various types of flexibilities exhibited by a flexible enterprise. The selected papers from a variety of issues concerning the planning and operation of a flexible enterprise are organized into following four parts:

I Enterprise and Strategic Flexibility

II Organizational Flexibility

III Business Process and Information Systems Flexibility

IV Operations Flexibility

This book provides a conceptual framework for systemic flexibility and business agility, drawing on a basis of research/case applications in various types of flexibility and agility in business. The selected papers address a variety of issues concerning the theme of systemic flexibility and business agility and are organized into following five parts: (i) Systemic and Strategic Flexibility; (ii) Information and Business Agility; (iii) Flexibility, Innovation and Business Excellence; (iv) Flexibility in Value and Supply Chains; and(v) Financial Flexibility and Mergers & Acquisitions.

Flexibility and agility in business are emerging as key dimensions of business excellence that encompass the requirements of both choice and speed. The two concepts, flexibility and agility, have been used in multiple ways and often interchangeably, both in literature and in practice. The growing need for flexibility/agility in business can be seen from reactive as well as proactive perspectives. A business enterprise is expected to possess reactive flexibility/ agility (as adaptability and responsiveness) in order to cope with the changing and uncertain business environment. It may also endeavor to intentionally generate flexibility/agility as a strategic change in a variety of ways, such as leadership change, reengineering, innovation in products and processes, use of information and communication technology, and learning orientation.

The book is based on practical experience gained during the planning and execution of e-governance projects in India coupled with extensive research based on six national/multi-state-level agriculture related projects. It assesses e-governance projects in terms of desired project outcomes and analyzes performance from the viewpoints of three key groups – planners, implementers and beneficiaries. It highlights six constructs: extent of planning, comprehensiveness of strategy formulation, effectiveness of strategy implementation, changing situation, stakeholder competence levels and flexibility of processes, which are applied to reveal shortfalls in the existing planning and implementation system for e-governance projects in India. It also identifies a set of significant strategic variables influencing performance based on three independent opinion surveys of stakeholders located across the country, and uses these variables as the basis of strategic gap analyses of some major ongoing agriculture related projects. 

Furthermore it presents lessons learned from cross-case quantitative and qualitative analyses in the form of a generalized strategic framework for improving performance. Offering an overview of major e-governance projects, it uses several illustrative examples to address the underlying issues and to support the study findings and recommendations. It also presents a novel approach of building strategic alliances across related departments to achieve effective e-governance. 

This book discusses the concepts of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) that are the core of various paradigms used in strategic management to understand competitive advantage as well as flexibility in organizational boundaries. It serves as a valuable reference resource in the area of VUCA markets. 

An increase in the levels and types of uncertainty has important implications potentially for the durability of a company’s advantages, the way firms learn and adapt, approaches for managing innovation and knowledge, and the attractiveness of different strategies and organizational models. In today’s world, strategic flexibility in VUCA is essential for business leaders to sustain market advantage and attain a clear vision amid the chaos. Business leaders who stay focused and are aware of external volatility as the prevalent characteristic are successful, while those who are not flexible in this VUCA world and lock themselves into fixed positions lose out.

The book includes empirical and conceptual research papers along with case studies and models discussing strategies for emerging markets in volatile and uncertain environments. It also covers a variety of issues, including innovation, people and processes, financial management, and leadership and strategies in VUCA markets. Apart from research fraternity and academia, the contents of the book will be useful for practitioners as well as industry watchers.

This book shows how strategic management can be practiced in the context of flexibility. It discusses strategic formulation and implementation perspectives and practices, including vision and mission, general environment analysis, industry analysis, competitive advantage, resource and capability view, generic strategies, business level strategy, corporate level strategy, international strategy, change and turnaround, strategic implementation, and strategic controls, as well as flexibility embedded in these concepts. 

It can be used as a primary textbook for managerial programs for executives, and as a supplementary case textbook for core MBA courses. Exploring “Strategic Formulation” and “Strategic Implementation” concepts from a flexibility perspective, it is also an excellent companion to leading strategic management textbooks.

This book offers a comprehensive perspective on policy theories, policy formulation and implementation, and alternative paradigm for dealing with complex social and economic systems. It presents insights into policies on major development sectors, including health, education, urbanization, climate change, innovation, advanced manufacturing, and economic growth. It delves into why public policies matter more than resources and are crucial for shaping the future of a country. It attempts a pioneering effort and delineates a complexity theory framework to deal with uncertainty, nonlinearity, emergence, and evolution. It comprises systems thinking, design thinking, complexity thinking, and tools for complexity analysis. Applicable to a policy system, economy, business, and organization, the complexity theory relies on phenomena like emergence, self-organizing property, adaptation, coevolution, and path dependency, in a clear departure from reductionism and Newtonian paradigm. Through academic rigor, it makes a convincing case for better understanding of application of complexity theory. It covers real-world examples and case studies related to evolution of economies of silicon valleys – Bengaluru (India) and San Francisco Bay (USA). These cases underscore the essentiality of complexity theory.

In terms of policy formulations, the book contains a policy design framework covering the science of policymaking, innovative approaches, and methodology for policy design. To deal with dynamic systems, it includes a step-by-step guide for the application of system dynamics. It articulates alternative paradigm – adaptive policies and policy design; alternative theory – complexity theory; and new public organizations and institutional development for meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

Aiming to reduce fuzziness, the book combines both researcher’s in-depth analysis as well as practitioner’s perspective, thus serving as a vital read for scholars of public policy, management, and economics. It emphasizes the primacy of policy process to discern deep understanding from the ground and to integrate micro-level realities and macro-level requirements. It argues for change from Weberian bureaucratic model to adaptive approaches and recommends policy system reforms, highlighting that countries should make the right policy choices early to steer ahead. In doing so, the book serves the requirements of policymakers and thought leaders.

This book emphasizes the concepts of strategic innovation and entrepreneurship, which are quite prevalent in today''s organizations. Going beyond traditional approach that follows strategic analysis, choice and implementation framework, and traditional theories based on industrial organization paradigm and resource-based view, the book considers current business environment, which is volatile, uncertain, complex, chaotic, conflicting, and ambiguous (VUCA). It takes the strategic flexibility view to cope with these strategic challenges.

The book introduces the subject matter of strategic management in retrospect and prospect, highlighting critical theories of strategic management. It uses a strategic learning framework rather than a purely analytical approach to dynamically learn about the external situation, internal resources, and capabilities. The evolution of strategy is given in terms of generic strategies in practice and adaptation in specific contexts. It further deals with essential topics such as strategic alliances and networks, mergers and acquisitions, and global strategy. It then provides the execution framework and models covering restructuring, leadership, corporate governance, and change management. The strategy in specific areas such as strategic technology management, e-business and knowledge management, and functional strategies and policies are discussed to understand the implementation depth. Finally, it touches upon contemporary issues such as sustainable enterprise, stakeholder perspectives, and comparative strategies in various contexts. It then outlines future directions of strategic management. In the end, case analysis guidelines are provided with sample cases from different parts of the world. The book also used interpretive and simulation methods such as system dynamics and total interpretive structural modeling to grasp the relationships and their dynamic impact provided throughout the book. It will be an invaluable resource for researchers of business strategy as well as students studying these courses; it will also be useful for industry practitioners, corporates and business policy makers.