CA Southern Africa has announced results from a first-of-its-kind CA Technologies sponsored study that reveals that only 12% of companies can claim that their entire corporation is on the path to business agility, even though more than two thirds of survey participants agreed that agile organisations are better able to quickly respond to dynamic business conditions.
The survey, ‘Business Agility throughout the Enterprise’, finds improved business agility is expected to deliver:
• Better competitive advantage (54% of respondents)
• Higher customer satisfaction and retention (65% of respondents)
• Increased employee productivity and retention (58% of respondents)
• Reduced costs (57% of respondents)
• Faster time to act on new opportunities (84% of respondents)
84% of survey participants believe that the capability to respond more quickly to new opportunities will give them a distinct advantage, but only 1 in 10 executives said they are leveraging the benefits of agility across their whole organisation to achieve speed and responsiveness. The majority of respondents attributed the challenges of agile methodology adoption throughout the organisation to complex environments (64%), cultural or political barriers (58%), a lack of financial commitment to change (25%), and outdated apps and tools (25%). Lack of skills or faith in the process are dismissed as relatively inconsequential problems.
Increased agility drives better results across the company
Business agility is recognised and appreciated for the benefits it can deliver in aligned organisations. Even with increased adoption, there is still a lot of opportunity to be gained. As organisations continue to incorporate agile methodologies and practices across the enterprise, they will see some marked improvements in their business. Improved business agility was cited by respondents as key to reducing fire-drills (51%), improving process efficiency (47%) and increasing cross-functional visibility (47%). Additional benefits in collaboration, customer impact and experience, and alignment across planning and investment were also identified in the survey.
“Success today requires that companies quickly sense and adapt to changes, pivot to address market changes and customer needs, and do so at scale,” says Heidi Ziegelmeier, Business Development Manager, CA Southern Africa. “As organisations become modern software factories, adopting an agile mindset and implementing principles across every department – from manufacturing to marketing to finance – ensures that organisations can speed up performance to remain competitive.”
To learn more about the findings of this survey, and to learn more about CA’s leading solutions for Business Agility, visit: The State of Business Agility.
You can view ‘The state of business agility 2017’ infographic here.
