Agility Beyond Recovery

• Not enough to merely survive, there is no real deadline for pandemic to end
• Key to plan not just for times of uncertainty but for times when things stabilise

The global pandemic has forced changes that have affected the way we live and how businesses operate. Very quickly, it became clear that organisations needed to adapt – and soon.

With the various lessons gleaned during the early months of the pandemic, many organisations managed to survive the worst of the turmoil, but what are the next steps?

What has been learned?

While a pandemic exposes weaknesses, it also reveals strengths. Companies that had already started the process of digital transformation had a clear advantage as a remote workforce became the norm.

Google has already announced its workforce will be working remotely until July 2021. Clearly, as the world’s largest information broker, Google has enough data to weigh the risks and returns of managing an entire global workforce remotely.

Square, Twitter, Facebook and Shopify are among many tech firms that have announced they were fully embracing remote work and that means opportunity for the likes of managed services, particularly managed IT services.

Crises such as the pandemic also demonstrate to the most reluctant of firms, that holding on to legacy tech or clinging to the model of keeping everything inhouse has a cost that will strip any supposed savings.

Not to say that organisations should start spending rashly or investing in unproven tech. It is not hard to find out what is working for their peers, what they can adopt or how they can streamline their operations.

Where next?

Situations like the present are a true reckoning of a business model’s viability and if a pivot was necessary.

While airlines floundered, the logistics sector prospered as traffic of goods proved to be resilient even in the face of a pandemic. The rise in e-commerce also helped ensure the sector remained viable.

It is not enough to merely survive as there is no real deadline for the pandemic to end; that we are facing a fluid, constantly evolving future that will be harder to predict.

What it might come down to is a complete change sometimes not just in operations but in an entire business strategy.

Being able to be both creative and flexible in these times will prove to be just as much of an asset in the future. While many eateries have needed to change to a takeout or delivery model, some have found a synergy with another pandemic trend: people choosing to prepare food at home.

Companies such as myBurgerLab and Tealive have begun selling packaged DIY kits for consumers to create their own meals and beverages, offering time and convenience to their existing customer base.

This creative adaptation to current trends and changing customer needs will prove useful in good times and bad.

How to best capitalise on the gains?

True agility should be embedded in an organisation’s DNA. It is not enough to be flexible in the midst of disruption, but there needs to be readiness for when things eventually take a different turn.

Planning not just for times of uncertainty but for times when things stabilise, being able to quickly formulate an action plan for not just one scenario but multiple scenarios – these are what will set a firm apart.

This agility must go beyond just keeping a company afloat because as some other organisations have demonstrated there is still potential for growth and renewal even in this unusual business climate.

As current technology has made it possible to still network and attend important gatherings without needing to be physically present, there are plenty of opportunities to learn from seasoned captains of industry via webinars and online conferences.

If boosting agility in your organisation is a concern, then you don’t want to miss the next Maxis Spark live forum on agility, which will feature a world-class panel of experts from Microsoft, AWS, and Cisco. The panel will discuss the issue of agility as it relates to efficiency, productivity, and security.

Learn more and register today at business.maxis.com.my/spark.