Influence of Technology on Business Agility

Jul 29, 2022- Technology enables the world we live in and is a primary part of our daily lives. Similarly, the world of business often relies on technology to achieve the best business practices. As the technology available develops, the presence and reliance on technology by companies for optimal Business agility also increase. Thus, it is crucial for organizational leaders to understand the importance of technology to gain a competitive advantage for long-term enterprise agility.  

Business Agility  

Before understanding the application of technology for business agility, it is crucial to understand its definition. According to the Agile business consortium, an organization's business agility is its ability to adapt and respond quickly to environmental changes. This requires a culture of innovation and flexibility, strong leadership, and effective strategy and governance. There are different levels of business agility that could be addressed by an organization. The 3 levels that can be addressed are as follows: 

• Operational agility - is the organization's constant ability to adapt to the operation, technology, and information to the changing daily needs of an organization.  
• Organizational agility- is the organization's ability to change elements of the company to adapt to the market changes taking place. 
• Strategic agility- is the organization's ability to create a strategy to stand out amongst competitors 

Once the level of agility is determined, there are 6 types of agility frameworks in which overall business agility can be looked at: 

• Agile Culture - is the organization's ability to with a set of core values, behaviors, and practices that allow it to thrive in a world characterized by uncertainty and complexity. 
• Agile Leadership - Agile leaders believe everyone has the potential to be a leader and that developing others as leaders is key to achieving a shared purpose. 
• Agile Strategy - is similar to organizational agility and allows the business to have a detailed plan in response to market changes or events for their products or services.  
• Agile Governance - builds the agile values, behaviors, and practices to provide a foundation for an organization to succeed in a rapidly changing and uncertain world. 
• Agile People - are members of the organization who look to constantly learn and develop skills through experience.  
• Business Change Agility - is the organization's ability to change quickly to events that impact their business.  

Technology for Business Agility  

Technology finds its application in all three levels of business agility listed above. The advantages of business agility include being able to adapt quickly and increasing customer focus, which can lead to increased revenue, cost reduction, and more efficient risk management. So often, organizations turn to strategic planning consulting services to assess the problem for one framework of business agility. Regardless of the framework, strategic planning consulting services look at the abundance of technology that affects the framework to make recommendations for future plans.  

Technology is essential for all aspects of business agility, from predictive analytics and big data to improving team collaboration and product delivery. Thus, CIOs who want to achieve these benefits often turn to IT as the primary tool. IT is the foundation for running a successful and competitive business. The technology that a business utilizes to run the operational needs of the business units is what brings business and technology together.  

For more details about our business agility consulting services, please contact us through our webpage or at info@bainbridge.com.     

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