Danger zones: who’s vulnerable and why
One of the Agility Index’s key values is identifying where specifically an organization’s agility shines or lags. In the latter case, our research identified a number of chronically rigid areas and cohorts.
Siloing as a structural weakness
According to the Agility Index, silos are a major barrier to agility. They slow decisions, block feedback, and make coordination harder just when it’s needed most.
Despite people and organizations being acutely aware of silos, they’re still surprisingly common.
70% of organizations have siloed departments
Executive leadership and human resources (HR) were the most commonly siloed, with 74% and 71% of respondents, respectively, stating that these key departments are siloed. While sales departments were the least siloed, even this is not saying much. They may fare better, but the data shows 67% of sales departments are still siloed.
Many organizations are structured in ways that naturally create silos. The impact of silos shows up most clearly when the environment demands agility. It’s important to note that the ability to reorient to meet new challenges was the next least endorsed, with only 43% of respondents reporting that they would be able to reorient within 3 weeks. Siloing is the most likely culprit behind this organizational lag.
Enterprise organizations struggle with agility
Across our research, agility scores varied widely by company size and segment. These patterns revealed how structure, scale, and strategic focus shape an organization’s ability to respond.
SMB average
Mid-market average
Enterprise average
Mid-market organizations consistently demonstrated the highest agility scores. These companies are large enough to have defined processes but aren’t too big to quickly change direction. They can adjust strategy without navigating excessive bureaucracy or legacy infrastructure. Agility is more likely to be built into the way they operate.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) scored lower, but for different reasons. Many of these companies lack the resources or structure to respond at scale. Agility is often informal, reliant on founder or executive decisions, ad hoc collaboration, and personal relationships. What looks like flexibility often breaks under sustained pressure.
Enterprise organizations posted the lowest agility scores The biggest contributor? You guessed it, siloing.
Overall, 77% of Enterprise departments are siloed
Executive leadership
Operations
Finance and accounting
HR
Marketing
Sales
Customer Success
Product and service delivery
If you’ve ever wondered why leadership can seem disconnected, procurement takes so long, or customers feel like nobody is reading their NPS surveys, this may be why.
Reorienting quickly to new ideas, budgets, or product changes
Finding the right stuff fast
73% of Enterprise organizations cannot successfully pivot within 3 weeks.
Size, complexity, siloing, and layers of bureaucracy create organizations that struggle to translate market trends into action.
69% of enterprise organizations cannot rapidly find people with the skills to meet emerging opportunities.
Siloed data, unclear skill inventories, and outdated systems prevent organizations from mobilizing talent when it matters most.
Industry differences drive agility challenges
In addition to size, industry differences introduced their own patterns of vulnerability.
For example, private equity (PE) firms overall show both high agility and established high performance cultures. Part of that is demonstrative of their industry and is a key to their success. But PE firms aren’t perfect: They struggle with cohesion. Moving fast isn’t an issue, but when it comes to moving together, cracks start to show. Aligning multiple stakeholders, leadership layers, and portfolio entities remains an ongoing challenge.
Financial services organizations have the lowest agility among the industries we tested. These organizations struggled significantly with internal trust, conflict resolution, and open communication—key agility drivers in other industries.
Agility by Industry
Despite coining the agile methodology, technology organizations do not perform much better than financial services.
While technology boasts the least siloed (but still quite siloed) departments, they struggle more than financial services with updating work processes and investing in skills development.
The difference is built in. PE firms are designed for disruption and agility, sacrificing some cohesion, whereas financial services companies were designed to be steady, reliable, and controlled, sacrificing agility at the expense of almost everything.
That model no longer holds. Agility doesn’t replace stability, but without it, stability starts to crack. The proof is in the performance: PE firms are 20% more likely to report growing revenue in one of the toughest market environments on record.
Revenue by Industry
