Designing companies for maximum value in today's open markets

Company leaders today are confronted with an endless stream of issues. These range from constant new strategic choices on markets, products and businesses to operational problems impacting monthly and quarterly targets. There are more decisions than ever to make – yet leaders are struggling to cope with the crush of daily fire-fighting, let alone to find the time to do meaningful strategic thinking. Why has managing a company become so challenging?

The reality facing leaders today is that their companies are operating in an open 21st century information economy using a model designed for the protected 20th century industrial economy. The traditional approach to designing and managing a company assumes that the primary focus of a company is to execute a proven business model in a stable industry in order to maximize shareholder value. This basic assumption underlies every aspect of how most companies are still designed and managed – yet it is patently no longer true.

Success in the 21st century requires a fundamentally different company model. Such a model must recognize that companies today actually operate in constantly changing open markets. To succeed in this environment, companies need to continually innovate new business models, and to maximize value for customers and all stakeholders, not just shareholders. Designing and managing this new company model requires a new mental model and toolkit – the powerful new discipline of agile strategy. 

Designing Companies for Maximum Value in Today’s Open Markets introduces company leaders to the key principles of agile strategy. Through this exciting program, visionary leaders will learn a fundamentally new way to think about their company’s key strategic and operational issues, and how to unleash their company’s true potential to maximize its growth, profitability and value in the 21st century.

What is Agile Strategy
Agile strategy is the powerful new management discipline of designing and managing companies for maximum value in the open markets of today’s information economy. It has been developed through practical experience with many companies and industries, as well as extensive research into current strategy, innovation and systems thinking.

Agile strategy is based on the recognition that:

• a company is an economic system that delivers value to its customers and its stakeholders
• this system comprises subsystems - businesses - operating within a broader ecosystem - markets
• to maximize a company’s growth, profitability and value, its leaders need to optimize the design and management of these systems.

Agile strategy comprises a set of models and tools that enable leaders to address their key strategic and operational challenges through designing, building and operating businesses, companies and markets that deliver maximum value to customers, shareholders, employees and other stakeholders.

Impact
Our goal is for this program to be a fascinating and transformative experience for all participants. Through the program’s six modules, you will learn how to:

• Maximize value with a new 21st century company model  
• Innovate distinctive business models as your core engines of value
• Identify unlimited growth opportunities in today’s open markets
• Grow value exponentially by leveraging platform and network economics
• Unleash passion, innovation and collaboration across your organization
• Apply agile strategy to resolve your critical issues and deliver immediate impact. 

See course outline for more details on each module.

Purpose
The purpose of this program is to introduce organizations to this powerful new discipline. For this reason, the program is:

• being offered at no charge, but does require participants to respect certain terms (see program application for details)
• selective – participants are likely to be visionary senior executives, board members or high potential leaders.
• limited to two leaders per company (or per division of a large corporation).

Description
Designing Companies for Maximum Value is a collaborative learning experience, comprising six instructor-led group learning sessions, group collaboration and discussion between sessions, and readings for individual study. Class sizes are limited to facilitate interaction and enable each participant to derive maximum benefit from the experience.

Readings
In addition to the core text we provide as part of the program, the course includes recommended readings to enhance learning and explain how the discipline integrates the key ideas of well-known thought leaders.

Faculty
All programs will be delivered by the founder and partners of the Agile Strategy Institute.