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Five Reasons Why Your Business Needs An Agile Strategy

Five Reasons Why Your Business Needs An Agile Strategy.

In today’s business world, every company can be considered a technology business. Every aspect of business — from back-office, manufacturing and customer engagement to marketing and sales — is driven by technology; which, properly utilized, provides significant business differentiation. The dynamics of the technology evolution — in all aspects of business — drives the need for an organization to have a sound strategy, one that is Agile across all levels. Having a sound technology strategy today that complements your business strategy is more important than ever. Below are five reasons it is critical for every organization to develop and implement an agile strategy.

1. The market paradigm has shifted.

We live in a consumer-driven digital world. Gone are the days when businesses can produce and market products or services on a “one size fits all” model. Consumers are empowered today through technology to significantly impact what, where, when and how. They have the power to express instant gratification, or dissatisfaction — often with potential to profoundly impact businesses and influence markets.

Consumers are increasingly demanding of individual options — not to mention the proverbial Latest And Greatest. This places increasing demands on business to respond rapidly to changing consumer preferences. An agile strategy ensures the business adapts accordingly and is able to better keep up with this fluid market, and, hence, stay ahead of the competition.

2. Agile strategy strengthens a business’s foundation.

A successful technology strategy starts with a sound business strategy; one that focuses an entire organization on its goals, objectives and priorities, and promotes alignment across the different groups — from operations and finance to R&D and marketing.

Likewise, product strategy must be developed clearly — defining the criticality of each product, where each is in its respective markets, its lifecycle, and what is required moving forward. Products that require technology to facilitate the delivery of a solution must be clearly identified, each with their own detailed technology strategies.

That said, all strategies need to be flexible so that an organization is constantly evaluating its market position — specifically the outside influencers in this dynamic world — while adapting priorities to create new capabilities as regularly and rapidly as possible. In short, initiating an agile strategy with sound business planning establishes a foundation for the entire organization to be flexible.

3. Agility inspires dynamic thinking and innovation.

The primary reason individuals and organizations resist change is because it’s expensive and difficult. Building agility into your strategic thinking supports a dynamic business environment— which leads to more positive acceptance of change. At the same time, changes in an Agile organization tend to be much smaller in scope, easier to implement, and more frequent. Agile strategic thinking rewards the kind of forward thinking that not only responds more quickly to a dynamic market’s needs, but anticipates them.

Which is why strategic-minded CXOs are using agile strategy to constantly tweak their business models — as well as their go-to-market strategies and products & services — to enhance existing offerings, and to create deeper, more rewarding customer experiences: This is what the market demands.

4. Agility minimizes the cost of failures.

History’s greatest entrepreneurs have always been risk-takers — and most will point to lessons learned from past failures as a key reason for their later successes. Innovation always involves some degree of risk. By making your organization more flexible, agility also enables you to recover more quickly when new ideas begin to show signs of failure — then using the lessons learned to implement new and better innovations.

A good technology strategy always allows for innovation. As technology changes, new opportunities present themselves. Making innovation part of your technology strategy enables you to take advantage of these opportunities — preventing disruption in your business, while enabling you to become the disruptor.

5. Success breeds, and attracts, success.

Organizations with a culture of thought leadership invariably attract the best talent — which, in turn, supports their ability to maintain their leadership. Building agile strategy on sound business strategy typically results in the kind of innovation that’s likelier to succeed in the marketplace. In short, success — and agility — breed success.

Agility in your business compliments dynamic leadership and management. This in turn rewards innovation across all aspects of the business; which enables a business to hire the kind of top talent that constantly evaluate their position in the market — and are willing to initiate the change needed to maintain and grow market position.

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About the Author

Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. A proven entrepreneur, leader, visionary and C-level executive with a successful track record of delivering significant annual revenue growth while ensuring sustainability of the business. Skilled in Entrepreneurship, Sales Leadership, Strategic Partnerships, Team Building and Motivation, and Mergers & Acquisitions. Has experience in executive management and building dynamic teams in small to large (400+) employee organizations. Experienced in growing companies not only domestically but internationally, having expanded business into Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. Strong communication skills, excelling in public speaking and gaining the confidence of customers, vendors and employees.