eBRC Drives New Book On Agile Enterprise
eBRC Drives New Book On Agile Enterprise
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 10, 2005)—Nirmal Pal, executive director of the eBusiness Research Center (eBRC) at Penn State's Smeal College of Business, is the co-editor of a new book on corporate agility, which features the insights of numerous thought leaders on a topic increasingly identified as a key to corporate success.
"The Agile Enterprise: Reinventing your Organization for Success in an On Demand World," co-edited by Daniel C. Pantaleo, vice president of the Strategic Issues Group at SAP AG and chair of the eBRC Advisory Board, offers multiple perspectives on the essential elements of and challenges facing the agile enterprise.
"The 21st century has brought with it an increase in the already rapid pace of change in all spheres of life and business," the editors write. "Successful enterprises are beginning to respond rapidly to these changes with business process innovations and technology to support those innovations. Agility is competitive power and depends on the ability to successfully connect thought and action, theory and practice, and business and technology."
"The Agile Enterprise" is the result of a mandate from the eBRC advisory board, a group of leading senior executives that recently identified the agile organization as the top focus area for research. A 2004 eBRC workshop on the topic concluded that a sense-and-respond approach to business must be replaced by an anticipate-and-lead approach, and that aligning infrastructure to the changing needs and wants of the environment is not sufficient. Organizations must synchronize instead.
The book features more than a dozen chapters that focus on a variety of areas including business process automation, innovation management, offshore outsourcing, the DNA of organizational agility, customer responsiveness, and security and privacy.
"The Agile Enterprise" is one of three books to emerge from the eBRC's work in recent years. Other titles include "The Power of One," which focuses on technology-enabled product personalization, and "Pushing the Digital Frontier: Insights into the Changing Landscape of E-Business," which addresses what organizations are doing to transform themselves from traditional firms to successful e-businesses.
For more on "The Agile Enterprise," visit www.springeronline.com.
About the eBusiness Research Center
The eBRC conducts research on how businesses strategize, operate, market, and manage in the realm of electronic commerce and business. The center is home to a network of researchers from universities around the world, as well as consultants, hardware and software suppliers, and other enablers of e-business. Current industry partners include Cigna, Cingular, Delphia Ventures, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SAP America, Tyco, Unisys, and Xerox.
Back to Latest News
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
