Business Agility for a Competitive Advantage in the Middle East’s Evolving Markets

With ICT investment and digital transformation efforts growing across the GCC, driven by initiatives like the ‘We are the UAE’ 2031’ Vision, many organisations still face challenges with legacy systems and rigid processes. As we move beyond a quieter-than-expected summer in the UAE, it’s worth reflecting on how businesses in the region can build resilience and agility through digital transformation, especially in today's uncertain economic landscape.

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Business Agility, Agile Transformation rebecca hudson Business Agility, Agile Transformation rebecca hudson

Are we stuck in 'change' inertia? 

Are we stuck in 'change' inertia?  Reading through 2022 & 2023 reports from the Business Agility Institute, I was struck by a recurring theme: the top challenges companies face in their business agility journey have remained consistent over the last five years.

This could be seen as a grim reality. However, the new challenges highlighted in the 2023 report reveal that we're making progress, even if it’s not always apparent.

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Banking on Change: How Traditional Banks Must Adapt or Fail in the Digital Era

Having a recent frustrating experience with my business banking provider made me question whether traditional banks are truly prepared to navigate the evolving landscape of banking and financial services. Which banks will ride the wave of change and flourish, and which will falter or fail?

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How Novo Nordisk harnessed agile to meet demand surges, reaching $500bn market value

In this series of articles we explore how global businesses have adopted Agile Manufacturing to embrace an Industry 4.0 world. In this article we look at Novo Nordisk and explore how an agile transformation helped meet demand surges in a rapidly shifting pharma industry, to reach a market value of $500bn.

Novo Nordisk needed to shift their approach to business operations to tackle some of their greatest business challenges including…

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The Power of Agile Manufacturing in an Industry 4.0 world

Agile manufacturing evolved from Toyota's just-in-time (JIT) concept, expanding into lean manufacturing, cycle time management, time-based competition, and quick-response manufacturing.

Unlike JIT's focus on production systems, agile manufacturing encompasses both factory floor operations and the growing significance of software in the industry. Its prerequisites hinge on robust digital transformation, emphasising software development facilitating seamless interaction among humans, computers, and production machines.

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The Innovation Imperative: Decoding the Netflix Model and Nokia's Missteps

What fuels real innovation? Why do some household names fail to keep up with the market? In traditional organisations companies may adopt an accelerated innovation pipeline, or host Ideation competitions. Some incumbents build Greenfield digital teams to support rapid innovation. However, these models tend to have varying success and short-lived results.

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Prioritising Innovation: The Netflix Principles

In traditional organisations companies may adopt an accelerated innovation pipeline, or host ideation competitions. These models tend to have varying success and short-lived results. Without values and principles such as those at the heart of the Netflix business model, ones which are exemplified by a transformational leadership team, real innovation will not be a staple of an organisation.

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Effective agile adoption: Handling change with sensitivity

Why would teams buy-in to something that they haven’t helped shape? Especially when the benefits have not been made clear or worse, there are no clear benefits to them. In the context of agile adoption at a team level, or agile transformation at a department or company level, a culture shift is involved. This can be hard to define.

In this article I’ll look at some tools and approaches to support agile adoption through sensitive change management.

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Adoption vs. Transformation

Agile is gaining increasing adoption throughout organisations. Agile methods have moved beyond just software development. However, there’s ongoing confusing as to what is meant by Agile Adoption vs. Agile Transformation and Digital Transformation vs. Agile Adoption or Transformation. In this post I’ll try highlight the differences and interrelationships between them, in simple terms.

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