The Six Best Ways to Improve Business Agility
One of the top phrases on the tip of most business leader’s tongues today is business agility. Everyday business has changed, and now it is imperative to create an agile environment where your organization can adapt and anticipate change; then respond accordingly as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is no easy task, so we have compiled a list of six ways to help improve your business agility.
Enjoy!
1) Respond Quickly to Change
Businesses need to adjust market strategies on the fly as today’s market is bound to constant change. It is now more critical than ever for businesses, startups, and well-established companies to include agility into their business model. Your ability to respond effectively to disruption, market changes, and customer preferences depend on it. Don’t let potential customers slip away because of an inability to adjust quickly and efficiently to your customer’s needs, desires, and preferences. Things will change, and it’s essential to be ready and able to shift things around without losing momentum.
2) Keep IT Involved
Don’t make the mistake of creating a strategic or business plan and then trying to make the IT department adjust and fit accordingly. Instead, involve IT from the beginning and develop your plans alongside an IT strategy that is designed to address the business’ needs, desires, and future goals while capitalizing on the technology available to fully optimize your success. Your IT initiatives are key in creating the kind of business agility that is needed to respond in both the short and long term effectively.
3) Stay Connected
A very simple yet critical step to establishing business agility is staying connected with everyone on your team. As changes come up, everyone needs to be aware and in communication. Solutions must be communicated, and action is taken to keep business driving forward while adapting to an ever–changing market. With today’s technology and available tools, it is possible for internal and external team members to continually stay connected keeping you ahead of the curve and responding quickly to your target customers.
4) Embrace Data and Analytics
Being agile doesn’t mean having the most amount of data and the greatest analytical breakdown capabilities. It means having the correct amount and knowing where to apply it. Having a lot of data covering the spectrum of your business plan is a good strategy, but not knowing when its best to stop collecting data, or where to apply your compiled data will lead you nowhere. Developing a business data plan with a consistent direction and limiting irrelevant data lake distractions is imperative.
5) Implement Low-Cost Prototypes
Agility is all about adaptability and mobility. However, sometimes businesses get so driven and excited about their spectacular idea that they forget to stay agile. Some put all of their attention into fully developing a product before thoroughly testing the products concept, demand, or popularity with the public. If customers are not as interested as initially predicted they would be, then it is far more advantageous and crucial that businesses become agile. Developing and testing multiple low-cost prototypes that are based on solid market research both protects firms from pouring all their resources into an undesired product and helps them to find their product’s market hot spot. Once you’re sure your building the right product, you can move on to developing a scalable, robust version to support your growing customer base.
6) Make Your Customer Happy
When a business has correctly read the market after all relevant data is collected, processed, and analyzed, the correct changes can be made to address the target audience wants, needs, and expectations. Make your customers happy by taking all you have learned and applying it to your product. Customers greatly value collaborative teams gathering better information and responding quickly to changes in the market because these businesses provide the best products suited for their transforming needs.
Taking Action
Meeting customer demands can be tricky because they are always changing, but we hope you enjoyed our list and found some tips to help improve your business’s agility.
Applied one of these tips and reaped the benefits? Or have advice of your own? Let us know by sharing your experience with us on social media!
