How agile is your technology?

This month at Makios, we’re talking about agility. The ability to be responsive and ready, to move and adapt with ease. If things are changing around you, which they almost always are, what can you do to stay on the ball, and do so efficiently?

Three actions you can take right now to create a business that is faster and more resilient, as well as a resource for assessing your current business agility–

1. Be Ready for change

Says Peter Economy, “Smart leaders build flexibility into their budgeting and other processes to quickly accommodate changes in their business environments. While the unexpected is by its very nature unpredictable, you can build an organizational culture that can pivot quickly when unexpected events happen.”

Does your technology allow you to grow (or shrink) easily? From your servers to Wi-Fi to cloud storage, agility in business requires scalable, easy-to-manage solutions. Having that flexibility built-in makes it easier to quickly adapt to the unexpected and save big on overall setup costs. Take Cloud-based services for example. In the last 5 years, SMB cloud adoption nationwide has gone from under 20% to +70%. That’s because cloud-based services are ideal for businesses with growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands. If your needs increase we can scale up your cloud capacity, drawing on remote servers. If you need to scale down, the flexibility is likewise baked into the service. This level of agility can give businesses using cloud computing a real advantage over competitors—in fact, CIOs and IT Directors rank ‘operational agility’ as a top driver for cloud adoption.

When a great opportunity comes along, you want to be ready to seize it—a business that doesn’t innovate and improve can be quickly left behind.

2. Create focus

We all struggle from time to time with the burden of a long to-do list—and the everyday fires and distractions that can pop up unexpectedly on a network, mobile or laptop. One tip? Create focus by choosing just three or four priorities that absolutely must be done. As you complete each item, then add another to your list.

And as for those technology emergencies—working with the right team of professional IT consultants who have your best interest at heart will minimize those, allowing you to keep hacking away at that to-do list. Smart security, disaster recovery plans, backups, and solutions that help prevent downtime are all part of this— https://www.makios.com/services/cyber-security

3. Work with the right people and deploy them in the most effective way

Are you working with people who are aligned with your goals and values—and who have or can build the capabilities you need to succeed? When you have the right people and partners for the job—all pulling together in the same direction, you can get where you’re going with a lot more accuracy, speed, and grace.

Bottom line, being agile gives you a competitive advantage. Set aside time to work with your team identifying areas that slow you down day to day or impede progress. Pin-point obstacles and set goals towards being both ready for growth and protected from risks. Our experienced business technology coaches are happy to help create a space to observe and dialogue solutions that leverage the best tools and technology for the job, so call us for an assessment today (915) 217-2500.

For more about business agility and a tool to assess how you’re doing and where to go from here, http://kanbantool.com/blog/how-to-assess-your-business-agility.