The term 'business agility,' refers to a set of distinct qualities which support a business to respond rapidly and positively to market changes while maintaining quality, safety, positive momentum and remaining aligned to purpose and vision.
The specific qualities that support 'business agility,' are adaptability, flexibility, creativity and innovation, resilience and balance. If a business is truly agile, you will see an organisation that has flexible operations, which allows the organisation to make important decisions and carry out important work quickly and safely, while remaining aligned to their overarching purpose and vision.
An agile business is able to work faster, smarter and better to deliver greater value for money. An agile business is able to delight customers, motivate staff and as a result, drive profit.
Business agility is about the adoption of innovative evolution of behaviours and capabilities to enable a business (and individuals) to be continuously adaptive, creative and resilient when dealing with complexity, uncertainty and change. This in turn, leads to improved organisational culture and performance outcomes.
You can look at business agility from a number of lenses. From a human resources perspective, business agility is about ensuring the people in a business possess the skills, competencies and capabilities required to respond quickly to new developments; and the supporting systems and processes to mobilise teams into action to efficiently drive priority tasks and projects.
As per the Agile Business Consortium, 'business agility' is the ability of an organisation to:
Adapt quickly to market changes - internally and externally
Respond rapidly and flexibly to customer demands
Adapt and lead change in a productive and cost-effective way without compromising quality
Continuously be at a competitive advantage.
Business agility is important for organisations who intend to not just survive, but thrive on a long-term basis. Creativity and innovation are the keys to maintaining long-term business agility. Businesses who fail to maintain their competitive advantage by constantly improving what they do, by being innovative and creative across all aspects of their business - or who instead, rely on ‘proven’ methods of doing things in a constantly changing landscape - often find themselves falling behind the competition and struggling to survive.
Would you like to learn more about how you can grow or improve your business and build a high performance culture by being more agile? If so, contact John or Deb at Business Agility Pty Ltd. We are your partners in business success.