Being able to predict market changes, meet customer needs, and deliver value that sets you apart from competitors is what Business Agility is all about. In today’s digital age, it’s essential for companies to embrace agility in order to leverage technology, drive innovation, and achieve sustainable success. Hence, by embracing change, empowering their people, and harnessing digital technologies, businesses can turn disruption into opportunities and shape the future they desire.

In this article, I’ll first look at what Business Agility means in this age of digital disruption. Next, I’ll focus on past examples where agility was the key to success in dynamic situations involving rapid technology transformations. Also leveraging the wisdom of these past agile endeavors, I’ll provide examples of how business agility works within a rapid decision cycle. Lastly, I’ll detail specific reasons why business agility is critical in this age of digital change.

1. Business Agility: Empowering Organizations to Navigate Change through Agile Decision-Making.

Business agility refers to an organization’s ability to rapidly respond to change, navigate ambiguity, and continuously deliver value. It’s about being proactive rather than reactive. Indeed, this mindset and its agile practices enable businesses to thrive in an ever-changing environment. Most importantly, business agility offers a modern alternative to the traditional 20th-century organizational thinking. Namely, industrial-era thinking that prioritized reliability and efficiency over agility and speed. So to define Business Agility in this context, below is a brief definition:

“… is the competence of an organisation to adapt successfully to a rapidly and uncontrollably changing business environment.”

Agile Business Consortium

For more references on the concept of Business Agility, see Scaled Agile’s article, Business Agility and John P. Kotter’s article, Accelerate!. Also, see IMD’s article, What is business agility & why is it important?  Here, IMD details why business decision-makers need to adopt flexible and iterative approaches to running their businesses in this day and age. 

“The organizations we created in the 20th century were designed much more for reliability and efficiency than for agility and speed.”  

John P. Kotter, Accelerate

2. Examples of Agility’s Triumph Within Past Tech Transformations: Parallels to our Current Business Climate of Rapid Digital Convergence.

Now that I have highlighted that Business Agility is an approach to navigating change, let’s look back at history for a moment. Indeed, organizations using new technologies in changing environments is not new. Throughout the past, people and organizations have used agility to adapt and leverage new technological advancements. Specifically, examples of agility succeeding have included military jet fighter tactics, lean manufacturing, Agile software development, and the IT DevOps movement. Also, agility is crucial today for businesses in this era of rapid digital change. Indeed, businesses must adopt agile practices to survive. Below, I’ll share recent examples of tech transformations that demonstrate how agility helped organizations to navigate change and leverage new technologies for success.

Examples of Organizations Using Agility to Adapt to New Tech

Agile Method Examples That Businesses Can Best Emulate to Empower New Digital Tech for Rapid Decision-Making

• Lean Manufacturing. First, this is an agile method that reduces cycle time, uses feedback loops, and continuously improves manufacturing processes.
• OODA Loop. Here, this is an agile military decision-making framework used by jet fighter pilots. Specifically, the OODA Loop consists of a continuous cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, Action with a feedback loop.
• Agile Software Development. In particular, this is where software development teams use speed, collaboration, and continuous delivery of software updates to end customers. As a result, this adds both quality and relevance to the final product.
• IT DevOps. Lastly, this is an agile method where IT development and operations teams collaborate for accelerated software delivery.

So, recent history shows numerous instances where agility is crucial for thriving in a constantly evolving competitive landscape amid technological changes. Further, these examples provide continuity and valuable lessons that are highly relevant to modern businesses navigating digitalization. Hence, these examples provide strong evidence that agility is a key success factor in today’s rapidly converging digital environment. For a detailed discussion of these agile methodologies, see my article, Agile Method Examples That Businesses Can Best Emulate to Empower New Digital Tech for Rapid Decision-Making.

3. An Agile Decision Cycle Within a Dynamic Digital Environment: The Way to Disrupt Competitors, Seize Opportunities, and Overcome Obstacles.

To achieve business agility in this age of digitalization, corporate executives need to adopt an agile decision cycle. Indeed, this is much like what people and organizations have done in the past as described above. For instance, one of the most versatile, and simplest agile decision cycle frameworks is Col. Boyd’s OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Action) Loop. To detail, below are the four phases of the iterative OODA Loop decision framework.

Example of a Business Agility Decision Cycle (OODA Loop)

OODA – Enabling Business Agility: The Best Way To Disrupt Competitors, Seize Opportunities, And Overcome Obstacles

1. Observe Phase. First, find out what is happening using Business Intelligence (BI)-Based Descriptive Analytics.
2. Orient Phase: Next, rapidly prioritize and diagnose pressing problems and size up opportunities.
3. Decide Phase: Then, analyze what can happen (predictive) and what action should be taken (prescriptive), and determine best option.
4. Act Phase: Most importantly, communicate to the organization the decision and intended outcomes, monitor progress, and use business agility to adjust as changes occurs.
5. Repeat the OODA Loop: Lastly, this business agility cycle Is an iterative process using continuous feedback for optimal decision-making.

“He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives”

Col. John Boyd

So, the the OODA Loop is an agile decision framework that businesses can leverage to practice Business Agility. For a more detail description of this decision framework, see my article, OODA – Enabling Business Agility: The Best Way To Disrupt Competitors, Seize Opportunities, And Overcome Obstacles.

4. The Reasons Why Business Agility is the Best Way for Companies to Fully Leverage Digital Technologies and Stay Competitive.

In today’s digital age, business agility is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have for companies to fully leverage digital technologies and stay competitive. Indeed, by becoming more agile, businesses can respond quickly to changing market conditions, deliver continuous value to customers, and drive innovation. Moreover, they can turn data into insights, insights into action, and action into favorable outcomes. Most importantly, by embracing business agility, companies cannot only survive, but thrive in an era of rapid change and disruption. To detail, below are the reasons why companies need to embrace Business Agility to fully leverage digital technologies and stay competitive.

Top Reasons for Business Agility in this Age of Digitalization

Business Agility and Its Many Ways to Exploit Digital Tech

• Rapid, Iterative Decision Cycle: First, business agility enables the reduction of decision delays and faster business execution leveraging advanced information technology.
• Focuses on Big Picture and Anomalies: Also, agility coupled with advanced tech enables organizations to observe situational changes, both physical and digital. Indeed, this avoids data deluge by targeting analysis on exceptions, changes, and new trends.
• Exploits Data Analytics: Moreover a business agility method directs tech to rapidly make sense of data, confirm challenges and opportunities. Also, it enables the integration of the full analytical spectrum to include prescriptive analysis to make recommendations.
• Aligns Tech to Business Decision-Making: Indeed, business agility harnesses Agile Decision Intelligence versus just enabling business process automation.
• Maximizes the Success of Decision Execution: Here business agility leverages tech for rapid organizational communications, collaboration, enhanced readiness, and adapting to change.
• Continuous Feedback Learning: Lastly, an iterative business agility cycle supported by advanced information technology enables organizations to rapid learn from past decisions and swiftly make improvements as necessary.

For a more detailed discussion, see my article, Business Agility and Its Many Ways to Exploit Digital Tech.

Conclusion and More References.

Without a doubt, there is a strong business case for organizations to be agile. Indeed with the rapid convergence of our digital and physical worlds, business agility is a must to outwit competitors, seize opportunities, overcome obstacles, and delight our customers. 

For more information on the OODA Loop and its application to businesses, see these articles:

• The Thrilling OODA Loop: The Way To Shatter Your Competitor’s Decision Cycle And More Breakthrough Concepts
• Alex Circei’s article, How Great Engineering Managers Identify and Respond to Challenges – the OODA Loop Model
• Joseph Paris’s article, OODA and Agility; Reaching a Conclusion Faster

An Agile Decision Platform to Empower Executives For Superior Supply Chain Performance: Here Are The Best Attributes

Lastly, if you are in the supply chain industry and have a need to supercharge your decision-making cycles, please contact me to discuss next steps. I’m Randy McClure, and I’ve spent many years solving data analytics and decision support problems. As a supply chain tech advisor, I’ve implemented hundreds of successful projects across all transportation modes, working with the data of thousands of shippers, carriers, and 3rd party logistics (3PL) providers.  I specialize in launching new analytics-based strategies, proof-of-concepts and operational pilot projects using emerging technologies and methodologies. To reach me, click here to access my contact form or you can find me on LinkedIn.

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