Agility in retail service management: A numerical taxonomy

This paper reports the development of a classification scheme of operations agility. Services, like manufacturing, are operationalized as agile if they can achieve high performance levels on the competitive capabilities of quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost -- simultaneously. Three distinct clusters of strategic agility groups were found, which we labeled "agile", "order takers", and "magic bullets." Agility mandates the ongoing application of continuous improvement efforts, the development of internal development capabilities, the forging of relationships with external sources of state-of-the-art technologies, the training of competent and flexible service providers, the presence of a sales and market orientation combined with a long-term business orientation.