3 REASONS WHY OUR AGILE SCORECARD IS LOOKING GOOD

Everyone from McKinsey to Accenture has written about the need for an agile work environment to compete with the speed-of-light changes in almost every business sector.

However, it is one thing to jump on the jargon bandwagon and another to actually implement an agile approach across all segments of your business in a manner that delivers optimal results. You need to be abreast of the latest technological trends, you need a talented team that understands the complexities of that technology and know how to test, implement, and evaluate it.

But what do we mean when we talk about agility in a company?

In the broad sense, it is the ability to react quickly to threats and opportunities. McKinsey describes the agile culture as:

deep and continuous collaboration; speed; avoidance of ‘business as usual’; embracing the unexpected; striving for simplicity; data-trumping opinions; accountability—and above all, putting the customer at the center of all decisions.

The advantage of being a startup is that you can get going with an agile approach from day 1, as opposed to established companies that need to overhaul their organizational structure completely – a complex, risky affair in many cases.

There are also some platform specific advantages to being agile. Most importantly, it boosts your speed to market, which together with network effects, creates a barrier to entry for competitors. If you can get your product or service out there and gain 20 – 30% market traction it makes it really hard for the next guy to convince your users to switch if they are already deeply embedded in your ecosystem.

With the above in mind we decided to score ourselves against three key elements in an agile operation: team, technology and traction.

Team 5/5

Rapid decision making is crucial for an agile operation and there are a few requirements to make that happen.

You need a flat hierarchy with a simple reporting structure so that things can get done. The top heavy organizational structure of big companies with its accompanying bureaucracy often means that performance takes a back seat as accountability gets diluted. In a small fast-paced team there is nowhere to hide and no one to pass the buck to. Not only does this increase team members’ accountability to one another, but it also means that obstacles can be tackled collaboratively in real time, leading to swift decision making and accelerated solutions.

However, it does not help if everyone in the team is a one-trick pony and operating in a silo. The various skill sets should complement each other to ensure product focused delivery instead of the traditional project orientated approach taken by specialist run teams. That does not mean our segment leaders are not experts in their fields, but they also possess insights into complimentary areas. That makes for fast, efficient communication and the rapid deployment of resources so that the path between customer feedback and product improvement becomes as short as possible.

Let’s take for example our unique profile making process. Having a line manager in place who can run basic scripts in the MySQL database means that information transfers happen much faster than when requests have to be sent to the IT department. Our tech-savvy sales team is also able make informed recommendations to the development team so that improvements are made without the misunderstandings that so often cause time delays.

An agile team should be able to separate core tasks from those that are one-offs or of a scalable, repetitive nature. Those should be done by external service providers or consultants for maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We have therefore developed a highly effective hub-and-spoke system with functions like profile making and customer activation situated in remote locations for optimum results.

We also have a unique two-tier internship programme that gives both undergraduates and postgraduates, including MBA students, the opportunity to contribute on multiple levels, including operations and research. It is a quid pro quo that gives interns access to a fast-paced learning environment and in return adds more flexibility to our business. You can read more about our Young Gun and Post Grad programmes here.

However, all the above would come to naught if you don’t have the right type of leadership in place. In an agile environment you need a ‘scrum master’ who can define the framework, set priorities, allocate resources and drive goals in short cycles known as sprints. We are fortunate that we have a leadership that can focus on multiple priorities at the same time, making sure that nothing slips through the cracks. This includes details like making sure that meetings are few, short and with definite outcomes.

Tech 5/5

You can have the most agile mindset in the world, but without the right tools and tech philosophy you are not going to get the desired outcomes.

We’ve mentioned the value of an agnostic tool approach, as well as the dangers of being stuck within an unwieldy tech framework, before. Decisions about which tools to use for which purposes, and when better ones should replace them, should be well informed and revisited on a regular basis. That requires a global focus and fast iteration from not only the development team, but also sales, customer service, and digital marketing teams.

Following a plug and play approach to your technology ecosystem also makes it much easier to stay tool agnostic. Replacing one or two modules is much more agile than having to overhaul a complete system. We have no compunction in discarding much vaunted software if it doesn’t play nice with other apps or APIs.

Tech also plays a big role in our reporting and decision making structure. We’ve implemented automated dashboards (Klipfolio) with key metrics as a single source for management data. Now it’s a breeze for the Eventerprise leadership to gain a real-time overview of each segment of the business. This is complemented by daily reports based on targeted analytics and distributed via messaging apps for enhanced accountability and the quick identifying of resource needs.

Rapid omni-channel communication is almost a mantra for us with different channels earmarked for various levels of interaction. One agile outcome of this approach was that our email usage has dropped significantly over the past year with an inverse trend in the speed of communication.

The bottom-line is that complexity is the antithesis of agility. By minimising the complexity of your tech environment, without compromising functionality, you remain geared for speed. It should come as no big surprise that even the CRM software we use is called Agile.

Traction 5/5

AngelList co-founder, Naval Ravikant’s oft quoted definition of traction – ‘quantitative evidence of market demand’ – basically boils down to proof that people want your product or service and that there is increased momentum behind that want or need.

For a freemium SaaS platform like Eventerprise that means user growth and increased user interactions. Networks effects – the additional value created by users using a platform and interacting with one another – is crucial to the success of any digital platform. Just getting to market fast doesn’t necessarily mean that you have created a barrier to entry for potential competitors, as companies like Foursquare and Groupon have discovered.

The challenge to kick-start traction has spawned many legendary origin stories such Reddit starting off with fake profiles or the founders of Airbnb going door to door to sign up their first users. Eventerprise uses a unique value proposition to make it super attractive for both event hosts and suppliers to start using the platform. Under the umbrella of universal free access, we offer free-for-life online profiles (worth $100 each) to all events suppliers, and powerful search, compare and review functionality to event hosts. It is important in a two-sided market such as the events industry that there are equal incentives for both parties to use the platform.

To facilitate those all-important network effects, we have made reviews a central feature of the platform. By making it is as frictionless as possible for users to give feedback and connect, exponentially more value is created for everyone that uses Eventerprise.

The fast-and-furious activation approach we followed in the South African test market yielded excellent results with a 95% activation rate of event suppliers contacted by our sales centre. A result that only bodes well for our international roll out.

An agile approach to platform development has become almost non-negotiable due to the potential rise of competitors, new technologies and changes in consumer behaviour. By applying agile principles to team, tech and traction, and keeping the needs of events hosts and suppliers central to all our activities, we are making sure that Eventerprise is ideally placed to be the world’s most trusted events platform.