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In view of the challenges faced by the present day's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, high level of flexibility is required for the organizations to sustain and stay competitive. Given the dynamic nature of the pharmaceutical industry in India, the need to be flexible is more pronounced. The Indian pharma sector has witnessed tremendous change in the last several years and hence, it is imperative to explore as to how these firms are addressing the critical issue of flexibility and its consequent linkage with their competitiveness by undertaking a qualitative study to structurally model their inter-relationship. In this paper, a detailed conceptual review of flexibility and competitiveness is presented, after which Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM)—a qualitative method is used for the analysis. TISM is an improvised form of Warfield's structural modeling tool which is used to develop a model using different types of enterprise flexibility and competitiveness for better understanding of the relationship between these factors. The findings of this study will highlight the possible implications for practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's fast-paced and competitive business environment requires a shift from a disintegrated and closed enterprise structure to a more dynamic and flexible enterprise structure. Enterprise flexibility is the ability of an enterprise to adapt to changing business and stakeholder requirements more efficiently, easily and rapidly. This paper proposes a model to create enterprise flexibility using service oriented architecture approach. This model is based on two key enablers of enterprise flexibility. First enabler is the capability of an enterprise to connect people, processes, and information in a way that allows enterprise to become more flexible and responsive to the dynamics of its environment, stakeholders, and competitors. This requires integration within the enterprise and across the partners, suppliers, and customers of the enterprise. Second enabler is alignment of information technology and business goals. This requires simplification of the underlying technology infrastructure and creation of a consolidated view of and access to, all available resources in the enterprise. This can be achieved with well-defined enterprise architecture. Based on these two key enablers, we outline our theoretical model explaining the relationship between the attributes of Service Oriented Architecture and enterprise flexibility as a function of agility, efficiency, and adaptability. This paper further discusses the possible expansion of this theoretical model to develop an enterprise architecture framework based on service oriented architecture at the enterprise level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]