Today’s unprecedented economic challenges are forcing companies to choose a path of agility or idleness. Many high-tech firms are just vessels sitting idly in the Bermuda Triangle. Some will simply wait for their engines to restart. Others will hoist sails that transform their motorboat into a sailing vessel that enable them to continue business and navigate using a new map that will guide them to safer waters.
As an IT CEO or business owner, you must make decisions fast. Not deciding is a decision. The key to successful business agility is building go-to-market strategies based on a focused approach but also having the flexibility to adapt to the environment you operate in with speed when needed.
But being agile is not just developing applications fast. Instead, it is an executive business model where CEOs and their leadership team move quickly to adapt to changing market conditions as they happen. Being agile as a high tech CEO means making strategic business decisions for your company at an accelerated rate. It also means being able to quickly shift your business model to adapt to demand.
In the past month, we watched as our society has come to a halt. Many companies – large and small – have simply temporarily closed. Others have leveraged their supply chain and shifted their business model to meet demand. Forward thinking restaurants have changed their business model from sit-down restaurant to a grocery model in which they leverage their commercial buying power to provide items that residents cannot find in local grocery stores. Fitness instructors have moved their classes online. They were agile and adapted. Their audiences didn’t stop wanting or needing the products or services – they just needed to deliver it differently. Yes, these are small businesses, but what about large businesses?
Over the years, companies large and small have been led by executives who see opportunity and create an agile environment for their company to pivot. In 1995, Microsoft was a multi-billion-dollar battleship with thousands of employees and yet it misperceived the entire Internet market space. In one fast agile move, more like a speedboat than a battleship, Bill Gates changed his entire company. On May 26, 1995, Gates sent the now famous “Internet Tidal Wave” message to his corporate executive team. The message said that the Internet is “crucial to every part of our business” and “will be the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.” The memo outlined Microsoft’s inability to grasp the Internet’s importance and in it, Gates declares, “the Internet will be our highest level of importance” from then on.
From that CEO instruction on, Gates changed his company forever forcing it to be nimble. This Internet agility induced Microsoft to buy companies and readjust its development playbook to help turn the company into an Internet player.
Often, when we are advising CEOs and their executive teams on best practices on how to grow their business, the discussion of change comes up and the speed of that change becomes the elephant in the room for the leadership team to manage.
Change is hard.
Change is especially hard for high tech CEOs.
If Microsoft, a market leader, a huge aircraft carrier floating in the ocean, burdened with dealing with Wall Street analyst demands, with thousands of employees and bureaucracy as deep as the Grand Canyon can change their business strategy pivoting 180 degrees based on a market need – why can’t you?
It’s called agility.
It’s fueled by execution.
Keep in mind…
- Agility is more important than innovation.
- Agility is a huge success tool in a slow or commodity economy.
- Agility must be supported by execution.
In a receding economy, strategy without
execution is just wasted thought
“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It is as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” – Nolan Bushnell – American Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Founder of Atari.
What is your strategy during this unprecedented pandemic? Have you thought about where you will be in 3, 6 or 9 months?
Are you hoping things will revert to the old model?
Hope is not a strategy.
Have you changed your revenue capture model, messaging, and lead generation program offerings in the last 30 days to meet the needs of our new market model? If not, we can help. Schedule a complimentary chat with our team to learn more.
Business market changes always bring opportunities for those who think… and act.
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