4 Ways Businesses can be more Agile

The Pandemic, raging at global proportions has put the spotlight firmly on risk management, thereby needing everyone from leaders and the entire workforce to learn new ways to cope – to adapt to working remotely, learn new techniques, and find ways to support consumers and clients. For businesses, governments and individuals, the Covid-19 crisis, especially the lockdown and their effects on enterprises, has come as a tsunami of giant proportions, catching them on the wrong foot. Not only are our ways of working and living changed, but the future is very uncertain as of now. Been an eye-opener. It has changed our understanding and way of working and living. Being productive while working from home and making the best of the situation, improvising on the run, and virtual meetings have fast become the accepted norm as companies strive for staying responsive, lessening the impact on bottom-lines & strive for business continuity. Some insights that may help shape a better response to the sweeping changes required:

Track and Share

Agile and prompt responses will help in negating and reducing identified risks to a great extent. Effective sharing of the issue at hand and communicating it at large can help to monitor the crisis better. Literally anything can happen next so for leaders it would be prudent just to monitor and track the crisis, rather than look too far into the future. Focusing on and dealing with the present will take up enough energy and resources, rest assured. Thus it is wiser to track the crisis and respond effectively as far as possible, then communicating and disseminating information about it.

People Matter

The coronavirus pandemic has intensified risk management, requiring managers and workers to adapt themselves to remote work, learn new technology, and find ways to support consumers and clients. For businesses, governments and individuals, the Covid-19 crisis, especially the shutdown and their effects on enterprises, has been an eye-opener. It has changed our understanding and way of working and living. It has given companies the ability to reinvent companies at the company level to make them more competitive, open and sustainable. In recent months, organizations have also taught precious management lessons, replacing traditional concepts and procedures, mainly due to the changing staff and consumers and a significant change in the environment. Remote working also offers opportunities and could help industries rethink their hiring strategies. There’s a massive opportunity for businesses to open up the vision on how to attract talent. 

Also Read: Rights of Employees During COVID-19

Prioritize problems & respond

The Pandemic’s toll on health and the economy has been unimaginable. Livelihoods, lives and businesses have taken a downward spiral, with almost no recovery in sight. Against the backdrop, business leaders need to first identify and then prioritize issues before dealing with them on random basis. Going to the basics can be a great help – businesses need to ask fundamental questions, seek responses and then act accordingly to remove barriers – hierarchy, culture, prevailing norms, etc…towards efficient functioning. Change is inevitable – what is required is agile and robust ways of coping. The faster that we realise this and implement, the faster it will become better. There is no set rule or playbook to refer, there are no case scenarios. Hence everyone is starting from scratch and will need to respond best as they know how.

Leverage Technology and Communities

The Pandemic has been a great leveller – and extremely impartial. Businesses both big and small have been equally hit – how they respond will determine their survival. This is the time for both – large corporations and SMEs to make sweeping or small changes as required. Since virtual is the norm now, they should reach out, explore, experiment and then migrate to new platforms, technologies & devices – this can help them save precious resources in the long term, build efficiencies and access customers also. Newer ways to engage with employees, customers and teams have been born & mainstreamed, thanks to the pandemic. Not leveraging these simple technologies and harnessing their obvious benefits would be foolish as there are ways to improve your business using technology. They are great for remote working, conferences, task-tracking & collaborating. And they are the future. An unforeseen benefit is the communities that are built due to this and how companies manage these communities – of workers, employees, clients, customers, etc…will definitely impact their future.

Also Read: 9 Ways to Improve Your Business by Technology

 Conclusion

As we struggle and concentrate better on more human-cantered health and social issues, individual administrators, corporations, and businesses always need to be vigilant and recognize and strengthen resilience to emerge more robust and more agile than ever from this horrific event. Needless to say, this is easier said than done. Tectonic shifts in organizational norms (and not just pale imitations of crisis management strategies) are required necessary to learn from this Pandemic and thus recalibrate in order to become agile and responsive.