Business agility: it’s a term that people love to throw around. But what does it actually mean?
For many, it seems like it means something similar to flexibility – and that’s part of the story. But, in truth, agility goes beyond that. It’s not just about capacity, but also the operational ability to respond to changes in market forces and structures.
Here are some of the strategies that you can use to make your business more agile so that you’re ready when change happens.
Give Yourself Some Slack
Being an agile business means engaging in a constant process of improvement. It’s looking at your current setup and then adjusting it to better meet your objectives.
Unfortunately, many firms can fall into the efficiency trap. They max out all their people and processes to the point where there isn’t any time to reflect. They can never take stock, grow and improve.
That’s why it is so critical to give yourself some slack. Allow lulls in productivity regularly so that you can evaluate what you’re doing and make improvements.
Find The Work That Delivers 80 Percent Of The Value
Pareto’s law – it’s everywhere in business. The trick is to find where it is hiding in your work. If you can find the 20 percent of operations that yield 80 percent of your revenues, you can double down on those, helping to focus your enterprise on the tasks that really matter. If you adopt this approach, you’ll discover that your profitability goes through the roof. And you’ll be more willing to let go of the 80 percent of tasks that aren’t really serving you.
Build Redundancy Into Your Operations
Demand and supply can fluctuate wildly over time, so agile businesses always build redundancy into their processes. They know that there will be situations where they will need to expand and contract what they do to reflect market forces.
For instance, coping with increased inventory may require using steel storage container rentals. Companies may also need to build stronger links with flexible suppliers, such as logistics companies, that can accommodate more deliveries at short notice. They may also want to run additional lines or operate a flexible working hours policy so that staff is available when things get busy.
Ignore Trendy KPIs
While trendy KPIs can tell you something about your operations, what really matters are metrics that tell you how you are really performing in a way that matters to you. Profitability is a good standard metric, but if you are generating it at the cost of taking enormous risks, then it doesn’t tell you a great deal about your firm.
Agile companies only explore method improvement; they don’t fixate on results (such as profits). For that reason, their metrics always reflect their performance at an operational level.
Release Early Solutions
Don’t wait forever to release a new product or service to market. Instead, test it in the market by starting small. If you notice a problem, you can fix it quickly, without having to enact mass recalls.