Amit Gupta, who is the co-founder and CEO of Rapyder Cloud Solutions, is a new-age technology specialist, who has rich experience in cloud technology, both in India and the US. He leads the team in driving Rapyder’s brand and value proposition and is responsible for the delivery strategy, operations and the organisation’s business growth too. Amit has the expertise and experience in architecting, strategising and executing cloud and digital transformation projects. He has worked in both leadership and technological roles in his previous tenure, besides has entrepreneurial experience as well.
COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. Every enterprise, including startups, SMBs, and large corporates, has faced an economic downturn and is struggling for survival. They are going through a challenging phase wherein unpredictability has become the new norm. Every day, businesses face new range of challenges, forcing them to adopt new organisational culture, emphasize employee empowerment and build modern workplace to remain customer-focused.
In such scenarios, enterprises are now becoming more agile than ever to turn this uncertainty into an opportunity and encouraging workplace collaboration to find a path for creating a sustainable and scalable business model. Companies with an agile business model can have greater visibility to their process and quickly identify and fix problems that might exists.
What agile is?
In simple terms, agile is a process that helps organizations maximize their efficiency, deliver value, and springboard their growth. Agile can also be understood as an approach that empowers organizations to react easily and quickly to shifts in the market and internal changes. In a way, it is an organizational culture helping enterprises to cope up with ever-changing customer needs and rank ahead in the competition.
Having said that, enterprises must note that agile makes up a lot of practices, and sometimes it can be overwhelming for new players. Here are the five ways on how an organization can become more agile.
- Gain better clarity to build better workplace
Organizations need to have a clear vision about their end goals and accordingly priorities their work. We know that numerous works need to be done to accomplish goals, but not simultaneously. So, we recommend you prepare a list of every activity that needs to be completed and prioritize them as per the requirement.
Keep your teams informed about prioritised list and always focus on the task that needs immediate attention and catch up on the next activity from the list. You can also use dashboard or planning walls that provide a platform for team members to track their work progress and help them gain better visibility of their work.
Interesting fact: 91% of C-level executives think organizational agility is essential for their business growth.
- Encourage employee empowerment.
The strength of any organization is its employees. There is no alternative for a knowledgeable and productive workforce. Hence organizations must focus on restructuring their corporate culture by building more empowered teams within them.
Employee empowerment means organizations must encourage their team members to work in collaboration with a specific goal and involve them in the decision-making process. It is an act of motivating employees and enhancing their creativity.
Having truly empowered teams helps organizations improve their employees’ productivity, provide better customer service, build a modern workspace and maximize their ROI. It helps them frame a team comprising highly trained professionals who take the initiative to solve any given problem and play a vital role in reaching the organization’s goals.
- Provide good customer support to develop agile work culture
Any organization willing to maximize its profit must remain loyal to its customers. It has been observed that any organization that stays in continuous touch with their customers will get better recognition and higher brand value for their products and services in the market. A positive public image will benefit organizations to win more sales and explore new business opportunities.
Once customers purchase any products or services, the internal team must continuously provide them technical support and renew their contracts periodically. A satisfied customer will act as the brand ambassador of an organization by recommending the business to others through words of mouth or using their social media channels. This would immensely contribute to an increasing market share of an organization.
Overall, providing better customer support will always prove to be very beneficial for the organization as it increases the business’s profitability.
- Regularly conduct training sessions for your employees
In the present competitive world, technology is continuously advancing, and new marketing strategies keep evolving, thus demanding employers to train their workforce periodically and help them stay aligned with all the latest happenings in the market.
Conducting training sessions proves to be very beneficial for both employees and employers. By attending regular training sessions, employees can increase their knowledge base and skill set to become more productive at their workplace.
For employers, conducting these training sessions helps build a brand name and makes their organization a prime consideration for graduations and mid-career changes. Some of the additional benefits for organizations by training their employees are:
- Prepares employees to take higher responsibilities.
- Enhances employee’s productivity
- Reduces employee turnover
- Boost employer reputation and profile
- Create a better workplace environment.
- Collect feedback
Organizations must cultivate the practice of listening to their employees and customers at regular intervals. They need to create an ecosystem to collect feedback from their customers and employees and analyze it properly to understand how the new initiatives they have brought up are impacting their business.
Collecting feedback is a proactive approach that helps the organization connect more strongly with its employees and customers. It provides them the necessary elements and acts as a guiding resource using which they can prepare a path forward for business growth.
There are several ways to collect feedback, like encouraging them to fill feedback forms, talk to them, and many more.
Conclusion: Corporate agility has become the talk of the town these days. This pandemic has forced many organizations to rethink earlier strategies and replace them for their business continuity. Whether an organization is rebounding from the COVID crisis or preparing itself for an uncertain market ahead, adapting agile principles will be a key source for their business continuity.
At its core, ‘Becoming more agile’ is all about embracing change, following new approaches, and creating a positive working environment and culture. Agile allows organizations to develop more empowered teams, set a clear vision for their growth, listen to what your customers and employees have to say, and more importantly, encourages teams to work collaboratively to deliver value and achieve the new peak of success.