Agile Strategy: The Practical Guide To Transforming Organisational Performance Through Greater Agility

• Agile Strategy is commercially led, revealing a fundamental rethinking of commercial and operational business practices.
• Agile Strategy is anchored in innovative and robust concepts, yet is a practical, ‘how-to’ guide which is results-focused, grounded in the definition and delivery of measurable business benefits.

It’s not a secret that many companies struggle with strategy execution in today’s climate of constant change and increasingly dynamic markets. There is a lot of discussion about agility and it is fast becoming one of the most important trends and buzzwords in business. Much of the writing on agile techniques, however, addresses start-ups or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which operate under very different constraints and freedoms. But, what about larger organisations – how can they transform organisational performance through greater agility? In his new book, Agile Strategy, written specifically for big organisations who want to be more agile, Ralph Fernando, international business leader and consultant, describes in detail his unique RADAR approach and how to implement it. RADAR follows a simple framework of Research; Analysis; Design; Action and Results, offering a fresh approach on how to address an organisation’s key strategic questions and transform its commercial performance.

Why this book matters:

• The pace of change is increasing, and strategic management is not keeping up. More than one in four (28%) strategic initiatives fail to meet their original goals and business intent, with insufficient agility identified as one of the top three barriers to successful strategy implementation.
• The square peg of traditional strategy — vision, mission and blue-sky exercises; the separation of strategy from “implementation” — no longer fits the round hole of increasingly dynamic markets. It is time for a new approach.
• If you look for guidance on how to create such agility, you typically meet with either high-level theories and generalisations, or approaches designed for start-ups and small-scale organisations. Agile Strategy is specifically written for established businesses, giving practical guidance on how to create agility.

Agile Strategy provides practical guidance for its readers through a clear framework for developing strategies called RADAR. These strategies are guided by a single, easy-to-grasp principles: "Horizon" and "Five Key Questions." Likewise, it offers tools and techniques for managing agility in an innovative approach to measuring these and managing the subsequent results. The book isn't only about theory as it also real-life practices. For example, it provides a wide range of real-world examples to illustrate key points and a set of questions and tasks at the end of each chapter to support the application of RADAR within your own organisation. Agile strategy provides a new approach, breaking from the constraints of traditional visions, missions and values. It’s a is a practical, hands-on guide perfect for any big organisation looking to create business agility in today’s increasingly fast-moving and uncertain markets.

The Author

Ralph Fernando is a business leader, consultant and writer. He draws together strategy, operations and technology experience earned on an international stage, where he focuses on value creation in private, public and voluntary organisations. Ralph recognises that the boundaries between functional disciplines are far blurrier in real life than many would have you believe, and that true agility lies in how they interact. He is driven by the need to make this agility a practical, commercial reality within organisations, after ten years of hearing leading thinkers and executives talk a good game about it. A Cambridge graduate and Warwick Business School MBA, Ralph enjoys spending his spare time with his wife, Marielle, and their two boys Lucas and Aaron, as well as writing and recording songs at his home studio.

Agile Strategy: How to create a strategy ready for anything

• Agile Strategy: How to create a strategy ready for anything
• By Ralph Fernando
• Out Now
• Published by FT Publishing
• Paperback Version: £19.99