Manufacturing Executive - January/February 2009 - (Page 15) INSID E With the prospect of continued AGIL IT By Paul Tate industry turmoil and uncertainty in the year ahead, European manufacturers want to become more agile. But many face technology and cultural challenges in becoming so. I Y Manufacturing f there’s one piece of advice I have for European manufacturers in the year ahead, it’s ‘Be flexible!’ ” says Heinrich Flegel, a member of Daimler AG’s supervisory board in Stuttgart, Germany. “You’ll have to be, because, these days, marketing can’t even foresee what’s likely to happen in the next four weeks.” Now, more than ever, manufacturers are in turbulent and unpredictable economic times. Last year’s stock market meltdowns and global reverberations only underscored the importance of being able to react quickly and effectively to change. One of the key management strategies to enable manufacturers to respond and adapt rapidly to changing market circumstances is the concept of business agility. And if ever there was a time to get more agile, it’s now. In an exclusive Manufacturing Executive readership poll of 138 senior European manufacturing executives conducted late last year, more than two-thirds of companies revealed that they are rapidly modernising their IT infrastructures to support greater business agility. The time frame for many is imminent, with more than a third JAN/FEB-09 Executive 15
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