After over a year of business disruptions, modern enterprises have realized that speed and agility are the only way forward. In fact, according to Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2021 eBook, “Organizations that don’t focus on efficiency, efficacy, and business agility will be left behind.”
In order to stay future-ready, organizations across all industries are moving to adopt an operating model that is agile and competitive.
Roadblocks on the Path to Agility
Driving operational agility is easier said than done. Enterprises face a variety of challenges when it comes to streamlining their end-to-end processes, including a lack of visibility into business gaps, monolithic legacy systems, siloed departments and evolving regulatory requirements.
Enterprises have no choice but to overcome these hurdles and streamline their operations or else they will fall behind their competition.
Now more than ever, business and IT leaders must recognize the importance of investing in business agility when it comes to their bottom line. Especially since, as the Gartner report said, “agile software development practices are fueling software innovations globally. Agile techniques create more value for the business, and faster, than do traditional methods.”
The real question is: how can enterprises seamlessly shift to a more agile operating model?
Agile Operating Model: The Four-Step Approach
Understand Business Needs
An effective agile operating model is rooted in a comprehensive and deep understanding of an enterprise’s needs and gaps. This goes beyond identifying business goals, requiring organizations to analyze the nuances of their operations, the challenges impacting day-to-day functions and all their expected outcomes.
Based on this holistic picture, business leaders can begin to recognize which technologies and strategies to implement and where to generate the most return on investment (ROI).
Connect, Collaborate, Contextualize!
The bedrock of agility is a connected enterprise, and so bridging operational and departmental silos is of the utmost importance. Every relevant stakeholder across the organization must have complete visibility as well as access to collaborative tools such as live dashboards, remote and mobile functionalities and personalized user interfaces.
By leveraging modern technologies to enable anytime, anywhere collaboration, enterprises can make intelligent decisions and changes without compromising on speed or quality.
Focus on Generating Value
Of course, the overarching goal of implementing an agile operating model is to generate business value; however, to ensure that expected outcomes are met, enterprises must clearly define—and periodically redefine—how value and ROI are assessed.
By leveraging process analytics and monitoring tools, business leaders can maintain complete visibility into their operations, quickly readjusting their approach whenever necessary.
Empower Employees with Modern IT Infrastructure
Organizations can drive continuous improvement and increase productivity by embracing modern technologies and low-code development capability.
To respond to the evolving business needs, enterprises can leverage new-age technologies, including cloud, robotic process automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning while maintaining a well-integrated IT infrastructure.
Furthermore, with low-code, enterprises can empower their employees by helping them easily develop applications per business requirements, with less dependence on IT.
Agility: The Need of the Hour
There is no slowing down for modern enterprises. To successfully navigate growing competition, heightened customer expectations, and a continuously evolving market, organizations must prioritize business agility. In fact, “with the speed of change expected to continue, the need has never been greater for an operating model that can keep up.”
And so, for business and IT leaders with their eyes on the future, the time is now to take steps toward establishing a more agile enterprise.