Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-And-Respond Organizations
Author: Stephan H. Haeckel, Adrian J. Slywotzky
List Price: $29.95
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ISBN: 0875848745
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (July, 1999)
Sales Rank: 42,994
Average Customer Rating: 4.42 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
A practical prescription for radical change.
Haeckel has written one of the most thoughtful and useful books on the enterprise available today. By use of simple metaphor, Haeckel makes the distinction between the existing build-and-sell model and his proposed sense-and-respond model. Build-and-sell firms are like bus companies with fixed routes and schedules designed to meet predicted customer demand. Sense-and-respond firms are like taxi companies that dispatch cabs in response to customer demand. Although the concepts are well presented and readily understood, Haeckel offers the reader no easy answers!Hackel avoids using the usual metaphors of complexity science but instead adopts and explains the term "adaptive enterprise". This choice enables him to focus upon three essential elements of business - governance, leadership, and commitment.
Beware! Adopting his customer focus concepts will produce radical organizational change. For instance, "Sense-and-Respond firms do not forecast demand for products and services. But they do place selective bets upon the stability of fundamental customer needs and on what capabilities should be in their modular response repertoire." The need to create modular organizations that support modular products - a point often misunderstood in practice by even progressive build-and-sell firms - is well made in Appendix A.
Haeckel frequently returns to the theme of a phased transition to a sense-and-respond model and demonstrates a profound understanding of the risk and reward of change in an existing organization.
Rating: 5 out of 5
The Future of Service Industries
Adaptive Enterprise covers two separate but related topics - mass customisation (customisation at mass production costs) and agility (capability to deal with changes in the business environment and the associated high levels of uncertainty). The book is primarily focused on service industries, where services can often be customised through organisational (re)configuration (hence the agility dimension). Most importantly, the book covers the difficulties of moving from make and sell to sense and respond - difficulties often ignored in cookbook style business books. The book also addresses application of systems thinking to enterprise design - an important topic that is not covered enough in business books. Those interested in agility will also find Appendix B useful. Here one finds a decision process to use when one is faced with significant uncertainty. Overall the book is refreshing in its honesty. After reading this book you might also want to read some follow-ups: Mass Customisation (Joseph Pine); Agile Virtual Enterprise (Ted Goranson) and Agile Manufacturing (Paul T. Kidd).Paul T. Kidd
Rating: 1 out of 5
Looking for Guidance in eCommerce - its not here
Adaptive Enterprises, the title holds the promise of long term sustainable advantage. Unfortunately the book reads like an extended IBM consulting sales pitch. The central case study (Westpac) is over 10 years old. Surly if this was a break through the book would talk about long term results and how they were able to take over their market by being adaptive. There is little evidence of this. Other examples are internally focused about how IBM's training and education have become more adaptive.Not enough detail to warrant the read or to get a real idea of how you would implement the concepts.
If you are looking for guidance on eCommerce and competing in hyper competition. It is not here.
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