The What and How of Agile Transformation Strategy

At a Glance

• The world is moving at a fast pace in terms of technological advancements, and organizations across industries are keen on keeping up with these changing times.
• Companies are moving towards establishing integrated processes instead of working in silos by connecting the end-to-end operations.
• Reporting real-time insights, shorter turn-around times, virtual connections, establishing multi-polar communication across locations and a flexible work environment are essential for agile transformation in an organization.

What is Agile Transformation?

Thought leaders and key decision-makers in an organization are always pursuing opportunities to enable a more efficient, systematic, and faster work environment. A strategic realignment between processes, tools, and people is required to start planning any Organizational transformation. Agile is one such phenomenon that makes this realignment possible and expedites the productivity in an enterprise. The use of advanced technology requires proper implementation and resource allocation. When combined with the up-skilling of the employees, it can generate maximum benefits from an agile transformation strategy.

Agility is not just a different viewpoint in today’s world; it is the way to move forward. Organizations need to understand and implement agile technologies to remain relevant and prosper in this world of going fast and staying connected.

According to a study published by KPMG, 68% of organizations (participants of the survey) said that faster product delivery was one of their key drivers for agility. In comparison, 45% indicated that increased flexibility was the main driver for shifting towards agility.

The study indicates that Organizational Agility is growing and is the next organic step forward for enterprises to integrate fortified IT infrastructure with results-driven, faster business models.

The Key Benefits of Agile Transformation Strategy

By now, the world knows that Agile equals faster, better, and smarter ecosystems. However, to implement Agility into your business model, you must first understand the key driving factors compelling enough to take Agile’s right steps. Let us have a look at some of these significant benefits:

• Better collaboration amongst people inside the organization leading to reduced communication gaps, avoidance of inter-department bottlenecks, and a comprehensive approach towards newer ideas and innovations.
• The real-time process driving and problem-solving through Agile technologies offers organizations the benefit of saving cost, efforts while reducing waste.
• Disruption brought by newer technologies, changing government policies, or unprecedented economic factors are inevitable, and Agile gives organizations the flexibility to change priorities, customize operations, alter process flows, and make organizational changes. Agile companies have a chance to stay on top of things even in the face of any plausible disruption.
• Faster turnaround time is possible, especially in the software domain. Companies can deliver work-in-progress or beta versions of their product and get feedback from their customer base to improve.

How to Leverage Agile Technology for Your Enterprise: The Agile Transformation Blueprint

Companies need to look at agile transformation as an organic extension toward a better, faster, and more technologically empowered ecosystem. Any change at an organizational level requires companies to make strategic decisions from the top and implement systematic alterations at a granular level. Technology and business experts help form an agile transformation blueprint that should serve as a centralized guide for all functions, domains, teams, and processes across the company.

Agile transformation requires fortifying ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems in any organization. You can use Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Agile and Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP to implement these changes. These systems allow enterprises to explore changes with flexibility and implement them at a faster pace. With automated insights generation, design, and deployment features, your organization can benefit significantly with these tools in the journey toward an Agile Organization.

Challenges of Agile Technology and Ways to Overcome Them

Any organizational change faces different challenges – in the system as well as from the people. The decision to move towards a more agile, flexible ecosystem too has its set of challenges:

• Forming an agile transformation strategy has many hurdles- ranging for technological maturity of the organization, financial burdens, readiness of the management body, and the effort required in bringing about this change. It is this essential to get business strategy and technology consultants on board to help your organization go agile smoothly.
• A cultural shift is a big part of agile transformation. Thus, it is essential to gauge the cultural readiness towards this change. Otherwise, organizations can find it very difficult to implement and leverage the maximum benefit of going agile. Taking out time to inform and educate people in your company about the changes and their benefits is a must when you take on the agility journey.

Agile transformation is the need and the calling of the hour. It is essential to prioritize the change and recognize the technological facets or upgrades that your IT infrastructure needs. By making the right strategic calls and planning your growth’s core, you can chalk your enterprise’s agility transformation roadmap.

Key Takeaways:

• The agile transformation process is a continuous one that needs planning specific to an organization’s technological adeptness, cultural readiness, and growth potential.
• It is essential to visualize the end-user and the end product to implement any change in this journey of transformation successfully.