We associate Leopards with being fast, agile, and adaptive –
something many businesses would love to aspire to or believe they have already
achieved. However, think about that Leopard for a moment lacking the ability to
maintain a sustainable pace, using up all of its energy in a very short period
of time and spending a lot of its time resting to conserve energy. Now doesn’t that sound more like many
organisations you know of, expending large amounts of energy but finding that sustainable pace in a market of change?
In our work environment we increasingly find organisations that
need to adapt to the changing market around them. But, I would propose that it
is the constant adaption, customisation and “tinkering” of applications and
systems that really restrict a business’s ability to do just that.
Consider for a moment how many changes you requested from your
supplier to ensure your application or system would operate effectively based
on your current ways of working. And now consider how frustrated you were at
the supplier’s lack of understanding of your business needs.
Next, consider what your company did when looking to adapt
to market changes or a shift in strategy. I am guessing – as tends to be the case – you
invited in your suppliers and told them there would be a number of change
requests required as updates to your applications and systems were needed to
ensure they evolved with the needs of your business. What happens next is the
response you receive from your suppliers is an extensive program of system
changes, which are significantly more expensive than what you had expected. At
this point the inevitable happens and we introduce that word that every
strategy leader hates … compromise. You are then entering a phase of your
business change where you need to balance the necessity of change with the
market need to change against the cost. The end result is that the costs
continue to increase, you don’t receive the changes you were hoping for and you
ultimately end up setting up the business to fail, not fast mind you, just a
slow and painful death.
I share this with you because, given the world we live and
work in, there is a need for a fresh approach to business. An approach which actually requires an
organisation to change, a change in the way it works and not necessarily by
overhauling existing systems and tools. As strange as it may sound it is
increasingly crucial for businesses to avoid customisation as much as possible
so they can adapt to the market quickly and avoid expensive system overhauls.
Of course people will say “well hang on Nathan we need to customise those
systems if the market is changing.” Well, I would challenge that there are two
approaches businesses need to be taking to ensure sustainable growth in today’s
market.
The first is by moving to standard components and interfaces. With this, you are then able to consider
vendor replacements. By forcing the use of API’s, or application interfaces,
you can replace components much more easily without the need of a potential
full rip and replace of all systems supporting a process. This equally ensures your business can
regularly validate the latest capability from CRM systems to Billing systems
and even, dare I say, communication systems. How often have you found yourself
frustrated just after launching a new platform, application or system that a
capability had just been added that would have benefited your organisation? Need I say more?
The second key approach is to look in the mirror more often.
Instead of the levers you seek to adjust
being limited to third party components, look into your business at the people,
processes and ultimately ways of working that you have established and ask
yourself, how often have these actually changed over the years? I am not talking about rearranging the deck
chairs, I am referring to real changes in ways of working to ensure 1. that a
business can maximise the opportunities that change can bring; 2. to ensure
that sustainable growth is understood as the journey.
The first approach is strengthened by the introduction of
cloud based architectures, which means you can consume what you need, and
equally adjust to new market developments quickly. I appreciate some elements
are more difficult to change than others but, by starting with a view that
everything can be changed, this will ultimately create the right environment
for success. Cloud capabilities have created new avenues for businesses to feel
more in control of the risks their business chooses to take and equally the
opportunity to leverage the latest technology at each step of the way.
The second approach is a lot more difficult because no one
likes change. Change can cause a stall
in business performance and ultimately comes with its own risks. However,
people will accept and equally embrace change, as long as you can articulate
the benefit to the business. Whatever those change may be, understanding the
business need first is the most important element.
Speed and agility are crucial business elements, but without
simplifying the tools and ensuring the business adapts to the market change,
all that an organisation will achieve is declining profitability and increasingly
demoralised employee engagement. I am always intrigued by business leaders who
share how confident they are about their business, but it is those businesses
who recognise that being as agile as a leopard is not enough. Sometimes you
need to change yourself in order to succeed and the tools round you may enable
part of that change, but unless you are willing to change your own spots you
may find that the speed you have is only enough to spin your wheels and not to deliver the continued momentum.
