STRATEGIC AGILITY AS A NECESSARY CONDITION FOR OPERATING AN ENTERPRISE DURING A CRISIS

ABSTRACT

The article deals with the problems of strategic agility of an enterprise in the context of adaptation to crisis conditions. The analysis of the conceptual apparatus of strategic agility, as well as the methodological basis of the problem of adaptation of the enterprise to the external environment is carried out.

Keywords: strategic agility, crisis, adaptation, unpredictable factors, business strategy.

Today, the success of an enterprise is directly proportional to its leader's ability to transform its business model even before circumstances force it to do so. Success does not depend on inertia, but on flexibility - the ability to dynamically change basic business models and strategies in accordance with changes in the environment. Flexibility in this case is seen not as the ability to get out of an already existing crisis, but as a constant readiness for strategic prediction and adaptation to deep, subtle changes that, in theory, could pose a threat to the existence of the company's core business. Many specialists - theorists and practitioners of management believe that it is flexibility that often determines the receipt of certain competitive advantages by an enterprise.

In this regard, it becomes necessary to clarify the essence of the concept of "flexibility", which is defined by different authors in different ways, since they all characterize different aspects of this category.

After analyzing various interpretations of the concept of "flexibility", the author came to the conclusion that in the process of evolution of understanding the flexibility of an enterprise, three approaches can be distinguished: production-technological, economic and market.

Most of the authors of the Soviet and post-Soviet countries belong to the scientists who investigated flexibility from the point of view of the production and technological approach, who considered the concept of flexibility from the point of view of ensuring the flexibility of production potential, paying attention to technical and technological flexibility, leaving the problem of developing new products without attention [1, 5, 6].

From the standpoint of the economic approach, flexibility is considered as a component of the economic strategy of the enterprise and is interpreted as the ability of the system to multiple changes in the nomenclature of manufactured products while maintaining the main technological equipment [7, 8].

Foreign experts approached the definition of flexibility from a market position and considered flexibility as the ability of an enterprise to respond quickly to changes in demand in the range and design of products with minimal loss of time and resources [9, 10, 11].

Summarizing the presented diversity of views regarding the interpretation of flexibility by various researchers, the author attempted to classify different types of enterprise flexibility, which is presented in the form of Figure 1.

Figure 1. Classification of types of enterprise flexibility (compiled by the author)

The author believes that the strategic flexibility of an enterprise is the ability of an enterprise to effectively coordinate its goals, which ensures a timely change in the set of strategic economic zones in order to quickly adapt to market needs.

Adaptation is a process of purposefully changing the parameters and structure of the system in order to determine the criteria for its effective functioning [4]. Based on this definition, we can conclude that adaptation is a management process aimed at developing and implementing a system of anti-crisis measures that would ensure the effective operation of an enterprise in a crisis.

In the theory and practice of management, there are three types of adaptive enterprise management systems, depending on the state of the external environment:

• management in a stable external environment;
• management in a dynamic environment;
• management in crisis conditions.

I. Ansoff proposed three models of adaptive management that can be used by an enterprise in crisis conditions: reactive, active, planned (table 1).

Table 1.

Adaptive control models for Ansoff (compiled by the author based on [3])

The choice of a management model depends on the level of variability in the external environment. Since the conditions for the functioning of domestic enterprises are very changeable, they should use active and planned management, but their management most often uses reactive control, which in these conditions is ineffective.

Strategic flexibility in crisis conditions allows you to make complex decisions that completely change the policy of the enterprise in terms of commodity, price or economic terms. The changes introduced should be based on forecasting environmental factors, both favorable and unfavorable.

Thus, strategic flexibility provides the necessary adaptation to crisis conditions and is an important link in overcoming unfavorable environmental factors.

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