Strategic agility: adapting and renewing strategic direction : an exploratory case study

Abstract

This study examines the research question: How can established firms adapt and renew their strategic direction through agile ways of working? An exploratory case study of an IT Consultancy Firm was conducted. 11 informants from the case company were interviewed, where the informants represented consultants with different roles and backgrounds. The existing literature on organizational agility has been reviewed and used to discuss the findings of this study. Strategic agility, as a highest level of organizational agility, has emerged as increasingly interesting and relevant topic in today's dynamic environment. Established firms experience rapid changing business demands that require fast adaptation. Agile ways of working have emerged as a solution when operating in uncertain environments. The findings of the study identify that the fundamental step towards strategic agility, is agile ways of working, including organizational structure of autonomous, cross-functional teams, and implementation of adapted processes from agile methodologies that are in alignment of established firms´ needs. The study locates that the crucial factors needed to enable strategic agility, are agile management and learning culture. The absence of the enablers poses challenges when conducting an agile transformation, as optimal performance of teams is dependent on management and culture. This research then uncovers that through wellfunctioning agile ways of working and enablers in place, established firms achieve the outcomes of flexibility, speed, customer orientation, and engagement. Then firms become in a better position to adapt and renew their strategic direction. Additionally, this study finds that the innovations taking place in established firms are limited to the incremental type. For radical innovations to be discovered, there is a need for other mechanisms in addition to agile ways of working, as strategic agility implies adaptation and renewal of strategic direction when new opportunities within existing and new business models arise.