If business resilience means reacting to and recovering from change quickly and well, business agility means anticipating a change and “getting ahead” of it. An agile business takes any opportunity to future-proof its operations or strategy. Business agility asks you to take action to preempt a crisis instead of planning your response to a crisis. Frequently, a key part of business agility is digital transformation and efficiency.

Why is Business Agility Important? 

We’ve all seen how quickly a crisis can impact businesses around the world. In uncertain times, the more flexible your business is, the better. Through digital transformation, up to date technology, and automated processes, your company can be better prepared for the next unexpected event. Innovation can prevent your business from being weighed down by old processes and can ensure you remain competitive in today’s market.

Business agility can help your company:

• Create teams that seamlessly collaborate, breaking down information silos
• Incorporate new technologies quickly, giving you a competitive edge
• Remain on the cutting edge of new technologies in your field
• Maintain rapid feedback loops throughout projects and processes
• Anticipate changes in your customer demand, adjusting inventory and services as needed

How to Pursue Business Agility 

Perhaps the most difficult part of creating business agility is anticipating problems before they appear. It’s crucial to diligently identify and reduce blind spots as much as possible. Do you have a handle on what your employees think about your tech stack? What is the full customer experience from seeing an ad to re-ordering an item? Where do your operations stall? You may need to use a combination of surveys, testing, and reporting to answer these questions.

Another important part of business agility is the level of visibility your IT team has into your software and technology. Sit down with your IT team and brainstorm how to monitor systems, identify errors, and protect data more effectively. Think out of the box for solutions that could make an “okay” process a smooth and streamlined one instead. Don’t settle for mediocre.

Lastly, focus on automating all the processes you can. Of course, beware of trying to save time and money at the expense of product quality or customer and employee satisfaction. Sacrificing quality for efficiency will set you up for failure in the future through dissatisfied customers and employees.

A quick note: To do all of these things, you’ll need to make agility a strategic goal and get buy-in at all levels of the company. You can’t achieve business agility without everyone at the company understanding why it’s important, especially because it may require some up-front investment in tech infrastructure.

Take Your Business Agility to the Next Level with Laminin 

Here at Laminin, we make business agility our business. We offer intelligent software solutions to help you take control of your data and processes to prepare for whatever comes your way. Our experts have decades of experience helping clients maximize their ROI on software solutions and truly transform their operations. We offer a range of solutions, from document management software to project management software, and we can help you implement, customize, and integrate these solutions into your existing technology. If you’re interested in learning how we can help you achieve business agility, contact us today.