Read "Design Your Platform for Business Unit Agility and Performance."

The short briefing discusses how top performing firms leverage IT to improve organizational agility (i.e., the ability to identify and respond quickly to market changes) and performance. One of my co-authors, Dr. Reynolds, worked with Jeanne Ross at MIT and consulted with many large organizations around the world. The case of one of those organizations, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is discussed in the briefing.

The target audience for MIT research briefings are executives of MIT Patrons (e.g., Microsoft and The Boston Consulting Group) and Sponsors (e.g., Johnson & Johnson, Bank of New York Mellon, etc.).

A few months after publication of the research briefing, an executive of The Boston Consulting Group reached out to MIT and to the authors to indicate that they were using the briefing to help one of their clients. He then asked the following question:

• Based on the example in the brief, it seems that the decision regarding what platform capabilities should be shared depends primarily on the extent to which customers are shared across business units. Is that an accurate interpretation? Are there other key factors about the nature / relationship of the business units that would determine the degree of sharing? Or that might impact the benefits of a platform?

We reached out to the executive and articulated an answer to his question.

The case above illustrates a typical situation where practitioners benefit from research findings. It also shows that it is not uncommon even for senior executives of multi billion-dollar companies to contact the authors and pose questions that may clarify some of their concerns.

TASK 1

Respond to this Discussion by creating A SINGLE POST with answers to the following:

1. What did you learn from reading this research briefing? Your answer should be 150-250 words long.
2. Identify a concept, a passage in the text, or broader issue that you didnt understand fully or would like clarification. Then articulate this as a question that you would like answered (see Note 3 below for further details).