The Flexible Enterprise

The need for enterprise flexibility in an era of rapidly advancing technology, increasing competition, and globalization, is apparent. Flexibility can be thought of as an ability of the enterprise to quickly and efficiently respond to market changes and to bring new products and services quickly to the market place. Beyond this definition, a truly flexible enterprise should proactively change the market through its ability to create new and innovative products and services. The proposed book is intended to provide a conceptual framework of ’Flexible Enterprise’ supported by researches/case applications in various types of flexibilities exhibited by a flexible enterprise. The selected papers from a variety of issues concerning the planning and operation of a flexible enterprise are organized into following four parts:

I Enterprise and Strategic Flexibility

II Organizational Flexibility

III Business Process and Information Systems Flexibility

IV Operations Flexibility

Sushil is Abdulaziz Alsagar Chair Professor (Professor of Strategic, Flexible Systems and Technology Management), and Chair, Strategic Management Group at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, where he is currently Dean (Faculty). He has served as Visiting Professor and delivered seminars in many leading universities; such as, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, among others. He is an active researcher and supervised more than 50 doctoral dissertations. He has 18 books to his credit in the areas of Flexibility, Strategy, Systems Thinking, and Technology Management and over 250 papers in various refereed journals and conferences. He is the Founder Editor-in-chief of Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management and serving on the Editorial Boards of leading international journals. Currently he is serving as Independent Director on Boards of RINL, HSCC, and River Engineering. Edward A. Stohr is Professor of Information Systems and Co-Director of the Center for Technology Management Research at the Howe school of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ. Prior to joining Stevens in 2001, Professor Stohr was a faculty member at NYU’s Stern School of Business for over 20 years. During this time period, he served as Chair of the Department of Information Systems and as Director of Stern’s Center for Research on Information systems. His research focuses on the problems of developing computer systems to support work and decision making in organizations. He has published in leading management journals and co-edited three books on information systems. He was visiting professor at INSEAD in France, the University of Business and Economics in Vienna, the Hongkong University of Science and Technology, and Melbourne University. He is currently working on a research grant funded by NASA.