Business Agility in tough times (Part 1)
It has been validated through several reports that the Economic impact caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic is going to be like no other crisis the Industries have faced in the past several decades. While some Businesses are still struggling, some have been Agile enough to be able to respond efficiently. This multi-part series of articles provides insights into how Business Agility plays an important role in these tough times, how the market landscape is changing, and suggestions on the core areas of Business Agility in a neutral format not specific to Industry or Technology.
Introduction
The ongoing Pandemic related with the outbreak of Coronavirus is forcing enterprises to rethink how they do their Business. This includes rethinking business processes, tooling, security, business continuity and remote workers. As businesses learn how to operate within the ongoing restrictions while trying to provide business services, this is actually speeding up the evolution of work and ultimately retooling multiple industries. Collaboration has mostly relied on Video Conferences in recent times. Travel bans across the globe forces companies to rethink the Sales and Marketing strategies as they realize that those cross globe drink-dinner meetings do not really have as much economic advantage. This is also an indication that the commercial real estate and associated costs may not be all that effective.
How Organizations are responding
To handle the ongoing uncertainties, Organizations are responding in the best possible way they can, let’s take a look at a few examples:
- Emergency arrangements are being made to make the required Hardware available at home that was otherwise restricted due to regulatory reasons. Citibank, at a major city in India, had to take this step as a result of lockdown all across the country.
- Medical Practitioners and Specialists are readying for remote consultations whereas the preferred practice has been in-person visits. Several hospitals (Apollo, Fortis etc. ) have started offering these services enabled with additional Hardware and Software.
- Business Leaders are putting in great efforts on open and clear communication with Employees. Frequency of Townhalls is higher than ever before to ensure employees are kept up to date and engaged on business conditions.
- People policies are being modified/extended to support their employees better through more leaves, remote working, medical coverage, physical and mental wellbeing etc.
- Companies have relaxed their Compliance and Audit requirements keeping in view the Employees cannot visit the offices to submit physical copies of any documents
- Unexpected business alliances are being formed. Dominos (major Pizza chain in India) has partnered with a major Grocery company to deliver Wheat Flour, Milk and other essential products building upon their vast delivery network.
- Automobile manufacturers are reusing the Technology available to produce Ventilators that originally was never part of their business plans
The above events (and many more around the world) bring out a hard fact that the Organizations have to find alternative methods of providing services and ensuring Business Continuity. To do this, businesses have to be more flexible, organic, responsive, and adaptive, while having lesser dependency on physical locations as much as possible.
Business Agility is the key
Agile businesses respond quickly to opportunities or threats, whether internal (e.g. failing business operations) or external (e.g. shifts in trends or competitive markets). Business Agility involves not just the delivery or operations teams, but the entire business including Marketing, Legal, HR, Infrastructure, Security, and other supporting functions required for a business to run successfully.
The ongoing crisis has been the force behind the desperate call for greater Agility for businesses on a very short notice, many of which have been quite successful. The three focus areas that are common across these and stay relevant for Business Agility are:
- Customer centricity: Disruptive business models and digital transformation initiatives thrive on customer centricity because customers are at the center of business strategies. Tony Hsieh, — CEO of, Zappos famously said “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” Knowing customer preferences and behaviours has never been more crucial than the current times of crisis as it helps create relevant products and services that meet immediate customer needs.
- Business continuity: “The ability of an organisation to continue its operations and services in the event of a disaster or unplanned event”, but if the event is as unprecedented as the COVID crisis, conventional BCP plans go out of the window. The current crisis is challenging the very existence of several businesses — read travel and the hospitality industry. It’s the business models that are driven by innovation which exhibit resilience that are able to continue to provide their services in demanding market conditions like the current crisis.
- Employee focus: A highly skilled and engaged workforce effectively delivers customer centric services when driven by dynamic business models. Employee-centred organisations are driven by empathy. They focus not only on skill development but physical and mental well-being as well. This plays a crucial role in nurturing and maintaining a workforce that consistently aligns to business goals.
We will take a closer look at these focus areas one by one in this series of Articles. Part 2 of this series will cover the first focus area — “Customer Centricity”.
