While the concept of business agility has been around for over 20 years, it’s recently gained traction and popularity as an increasing number of popular companies have adopted an agile model—and for good reason. Business agility enables organizations to quickly adapt to market changes, better meet their customers’ needs, continuously maintain a competitive advantage, and much more. Better yet, when it comes to the cloud communications industry, business agility has proven benefits and can help alleviate some of the common challenges service providers face every day.

What is Business Agility?

According to the Business Agility 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, and continuously be at a competitive advantage.” 

The agile model puts customers front and center, which is key, because no business can thrive without keeping its customers happy and renewing term after term. Business Agility ensures the entire organization is working together to deliver products that fulfill customers’ needs—and to be able to do so quickly. Businesses that embrace agile are able to better handle market changes, deliver more to their customers, and remain customer focused, all while keeping their company and product stable.

How Cloud Comms Providers Can Benefit from Business Agility

There are myriad ways that business agility can alleviate some of the common challenges Cloud Comms Providers face every day. Over the past year and a half we’ve seen how rapidly the market can change, with the sudden move to WFH at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and been reminded of  constantly changing customer needs, as we’re seeing with the migration to a hybrid workplace, to high customer attrition, which many cloud comms providers are all too familiar with (read more about that here). An agile business model can provide a competitive edge while helping overcome these challenges.

Here are 3 key benefits of business agility for cloud comms providers:

1. Faster Time to Market: According to McKinsey, agile transformation can reduce time to market by at least 40%. Decreasing your time to market gives you a significant competitive edge because you’ll be able to quickly respond to market changes, and can bring new products to market faster than your competitors. When customers’ needs change, they’ll know they can count on you to deliver what they need and will have no reason to look to your competitors. 

2. Improved Customer Satisfaction: Agile teams make it a priority to keep an open line of communication with their customers and ask for feedback throughout the development process, rather than at the end. Including customers in the process can result in higher quality customer feedback, and also helps you to know that you’re building the right products for your customers. It’s easier to find out exactly what your customers need, especially as those needs change. It also helps ensure that you’re prioritizing products and features based on the actual needs of your customers at that time. All of this leads to higher customer satisfaction (and in turn, lower customer attrition!) because you’re able to deliver what they need quickly, and they’re more invested in your company/product since they are part of the development process.

3. Increased Operational Performance: Part of the agile methodology is decision making by those closest to the project, rather than coming from the top down. This can empower your employees because they feel like they have a voice and are trusted to make decisions. It also gives them more flexibility and freedom to experiment, which can help them continuously improve both personally and professionally.  And for many, this will help motivate employees, have them be more excited about what they’re working on, and ultimately improve operational performance.