Agility can improve employee engagement by 20% and boost the customer experience by up to 30%, according to Mckinsey & Company. Organizational agility might sound like any other buzzword, but it can be the key to take your business to the next level. In an era when technologies and collaborative networks are developing at a rapid rate, adopting an agile culture that embraces flexibility, adaptability, and teamwork is essential. When your business is agile, you can turn uncertainties into opportunities and succeed when other companies fail. The good news is businesses of all sizes can use agility to evolve swiftly and adapt to the ever-changing business trends. Here are actionable steps to make your business more agile and effective.
Set Realistic Objectives
Before you can implement an agile model in your company, write down your objectives and important issues to consider. To set realistic and measurable objectives, ask yourself how embracing agility benefits your company. Take into account how you will balance running daily operations and creating time for continuous development and growth. Also, determine how agility will fit into the values and overall business goals and what adjustments you will need to make for it to work. Once you have a clear picture of how agility could impact your business, setting objectives that align with your company goals becomes easy.
Be Clear About Your Priorities
Prioritization has proven to be an essential part of building successful agile enterprises. Considering new tasks emerge as teams complete those on their to-do list, you need to set clear priorities that help you determine what requires your attention and what can wait. Remember, without a proper plan, embracing change and opportunities can be hard. So, prioritize what matters most to promote business growth.
Automate Processes
Automation can increase business agility, as it promotes scalability, data analytics, and security. When you automate tasks, you create opportunities to switch from internal IT systems to cloud-based software. This move can help you reduce downtime, save IT costs, and provide user-friendly platforms you and your employees can access anytime from different locations. According to Journyx, automated workflows easily validate time and costs, so you don’t waste time fixing errors. For instance, automating accounting processes and payroll using time tracking software can help reduce errors, speed up billing processes, and improve employee satisfaction. Improved data analytics is another benefit of process automation. With accurate data at hand, you can easily make informed decisions that enhance efficiency and uncover potential pitfalls. You can also use data analysis to identify areas that need optimization to boost your ROI.
Empower Your Employees
To increase your business agility, you need an agile workforce. Working with agile employees means faster and more effective processes. So, take an open-minded step to empower your employees to take risks. Start by encouraging them to engage in innovative projects regardless of how many times they fail. Ideally, innovation entails taking risks, failing, and learning insightful lessons from the mistakes they make. Also, empower your staff to research before making decisions and avoid dictating commands or micromanaging workers. Instead, be empathetic and work closely with your staff to boost collaboration. Nurturing a spirit of teamwork encourages employees to collectively focus on meeting customer needs by providing quality products and services.
Many entrepreneurs assume agile is for tech businesses only, but that’s not the case. Any business can adopt agility to improve the chances of growth, development, and success. Embracing agile methodologies is the key to make your company flexible and adaptable to rapid changes in the world of business. To become more agile, set clear business objectives, automate processes, set priorities, and empower employees. Additionally, hire the right talent and deploy them in the right departments, set a good example, create focus, and most importantly, create a motivating purpose. When you have a motivating purpose, it proves you are not in business for the money only, but to make a difference in the world.
