Achieving Agility at Nokia Siemens Networks through a Project Management Orientation

In turbulent and volatile global markets agility provides the capability of a supply chain to cope with complexity, unpredictable events along the network and to respond to short-term changes in demand (Christopher 2000). However, while agility has been highlighted as a way to improve competitiveness, there is a need for case studies of firms which have sought to implement this philosophy with concrete actions (Gunasekaran 1999, Vazquez-Bustelo et al 2007). The present paper aims to present an application within the mobile infrastructure industry, specifically in the firm Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) where a project-based refocusing has helped in implementing the agility philosophy. The paradigm of agility has been described as mutually supportive with ‘leanness’ through the idea of ‘leagility’ (Katayama and Bennet 1999, Christopher and Towill 2000). While leagility is often applicable to single manufacturing plants (Prince and Key 2003) through the existence of a ‘decoupling point’, NSN represents a case where lean and agile systems coexist at different phases along a supply chain and at a production plant. The complexity of this case study comes from the fact that this supply chain incorporates the original supply chains, of Nokia and Siemens which are now merged. Nokia Siemens Network Services – Network Implementation (NSN NI) is a project-business driven organization, where back-end processes are progressively oriented towards the lean principles of cost reduction and standardization while the more customer facing processes (including systems’ on-site installation and assistance) seek to be flexible and adaptive following an agile philosophy. In this sense leagility exists at NSN through the presence of a form of ‘supply-chain decoupling point’, where: - upstream, there is a system of back-end service delivery engines oriented toward the standardization of the single processes and activities, - downstream, there are different service projects which run in parallel and require to be flexible and fit for their specific environment