It sounds paradoxical: An essential prerequisite for stabilization is the ability to be flexible and adaptable, i.e., to change. This ability becomes relevant with increasing probability that essential framework conditions will change. In dynamic, complex environments, there are significantly higher demands on flexibility and adaptability than in environments that hardly change at all.
Example 1: A well-established food retail chain carries out its intralogistics, i.e. the management of central and distribution warehouses, predominantly manually.
In the meantime, automated systems for intralogistics are being used in industrial environments, which are also offered for food retailing and have already been installed in some cases. For the food retail chain, it is not yet foreseeable whether such systems will become established in food retail. As long as these systems have not yet proven themselves in food retailing and a decision has not yet been made, the food retail chain is systematically replacing its vacant positions in intralogistics with temporary workers. This makes the company more flexible and prepares it for the possible introduction of automated warehouse management.
Example 2: A mechanical engineering company operated with a very large in-house range of manufacture. This way of working kept the company relatively independent of third parties and delivered high contribution margins, but profitability still suffered because the operational effort for the many individual activities was enormous and coordination was difficult. Infrastructure and resources had to be maintained for all activities at all times, but were only partially utilized.
The company therefore decided to outsource non-strategic operations to specialists. It benefited from several advantages: Coordination became easier, operational costs decreased, and the company had gained access to modern equipment and processes by working with specialist companies.
You can acquire this capability with your organization. Important prerequisites are a participative management style that promotes independent work and initiative to adapt, as well as agile working. Flexibility also requires future-open controlling.