Start with the Agile fringes?

At a Lean Coffee during Scrum Australia, I mentioned that it seemed like Agile adoption in larger enterprises tends to start and thrive on the fringes whereas the core is much more resistant.

Why is this?

Are the fringe areas more likely to be customer-focused?

For traditional enterprises, digital areas tend to be on the fringes and digital areas also tend to be significantly more customer-focused.

Peter Lee pointed out another possible explanation.  In large enterprises, all the policies and processes will be designed for the core areas, not for the fringes.  The fringe areas are already used to having to do their own thing, so Agile being different is not as big of a deal.

If this characterisation is true, does this suggest a path for successful Agile adoption?

1. Start and establish on the fringes and ignore any focus on the core
2. Get official endorsement (to protect gains)
3. Core teams gradually adopt OR the fringes become dominant and slowly push out the old core