Applying agility in the workplace has become a trend during the past few years for its wide range of benefits, such as adaptability, faster work speed, and innovation. However, some companies fail to implement it in its correct sense and gain its fruits. This raises several questions: is it because agile is only successful for software companies? Or is it because some companies may have a limited or ambiguous understanding of the concept and its implementation?
What does Agile mean?
Despite the fact that agility is one of the most popular and challenging concepts, there is no one common definition explaining it. A study explained that there are four main factors that most definitions highlight to define agile organizations. The first two are the organization’s ability to act to change in internal or external business environments at the right time and its response to act proactively on and predict change to make the most of it as an opportunity.
The third component involves learning and continuously expanding or accumulating skills, knowledge, and experience. Last but not least, agile organizations have to build a network structure, a people-centered and purpose-driven culture, as well as iterative processes to improve/enhance a product, service, and the like. Taking into consideration those factors, Petermann and Zacher define an agile organization as “a network of self-organized teams in which employees are able to autonomously make decisions and change the course of action”.
How to apply agility in your workplace
Although the rate of organizations applying agility in the workplace is accelerating, not all organizations are applying it in the right manner which might affect the employees’ performance in a negative way. This is not because agility works only in IT or software companies; agility can be implemented in almost all types of organizations. It is because companies are not embedding the concept in the right sense.
There are several building blocks for developing agility in the workplace such as strategy, values, agile team, organizational structure, agile leaders & managers, culture, and processes. These building blocks can be grouped into two categories: organizational level (strategy, organizational structure, culture, and agile leaders) and team and individual levels.
Organizational level
Strategy: For companies to successfully embrace agility, they should create an agile strategy that is aligned with their overall business strategy. This would create a clear roadmap for applying agility in the whole company.
Organizational structure: Having a long hierarchy that does not allow smooth decision-making does not allow for the successful implementation of agility.
Culture: Companies should embed agility and its components into their culture to successfully implement it.
Agile Leaders: In applying agility, leaders are not only knowledge experts or experienced managers anymore; instead, they are supportive leaders that allow decision-making and delegation within their teams.
Reward systems: Ashutosh Muduli (2019) recommends that allowing nontraditional rewards – like skill-based pay systems, improvement-based incentives, and nonmonetary rewards – do help in fostering workplace agility.
Information systems: They are crucial to boosting operational speed and flexibility within the workforce agility. Muduli pointed out that information systems will help in giving access to timely information associated with the customer, accounting, and business performance, as well as management, organizational leaders.
Team and individual levels
a. Team level (definition and characteristics)According to Petermann and Zacher, agile teams are defined as “teams that use agile methods in their daily business”. Despite a wide range of agile methods and practices, most of them involve common characteristics. Those characteristics include self-organization, delegation, a quick exchange of information, rapid and continuous two-way communication, and feedback with the customers as well as within the team.
Based on those factors, agile teams are able to develop high transparency and a method to measure progress. They have the capability to use iterative processes and respond to changes efficiently and successfully. Agile teams will be able to direct their attention on simple designs that reveal incremental steps that are easy to understand for everyone included.
b. Individual Level (definition and characteristics)
There is not one common definition for agile individuals that is accepted by everyone. Petermann and Zacher describe agile individuals as “people who have the abilities, knowledge, and skills to proactively seek opportunities, and are able to quickly adapt to new situations.” They are also characterized as people who have the required skills to predict, apply, and make full use of and derive benefit from changes.
c. Individual characteristics and team formation
Since individual characteristics and team formation are critical for implementing agility, Petermann and Zacher suggest that companies should re-evaluate their recruitment and development practices. Recruiters should highlight agility skills in their job postings in order to attract candidates with an agile mindset and personality. During interviewing and selection phases, HR people should focus on personality characteristics and cognitive abilities that focus on change.
Training and development are also very important to help agile teams adapt rapidly to changing market requirements. Agile teams need to get updated with the latest skills and knowledge to respond successfully to market changes. Leaders should also be provided with training to lead their teams successfully and efficiently.
Moreover, organizations should train their employees about various methods and tools (such as scrum) that could aid them to apply agility in the workplace. However, it has to be noted that not all circumstances are treated with the same amount of agility and not all methods and practices can be applied in all workplaces. Companies need to ensure that the methods they are using do suit their environments.
There is no doubt that implementing agility is not a piece of cake and companies need to understand the concept and its implementation thoroughly. You can find below some ideas on how you can do that:
Start small: It is better to apply agility on a smaller scale. For instance, you can start with the research and development department. When the team members master agility, they can transfer the knowledge and methods to other departments.
Stop and review: During the implementation phase, you should always stop and assess the current situation to make sure that you are applying agility in the right way, whether in decision-making, meetings, processes, or others. This will also help in assessing whether the teams do really understand the concept of agility or not.
Communicate: Always allow for two-way communication and feedback within the team members and from top-down and down-top in the company. This will enable feedback and continuous learning across the organization.
To sum up, agility can be applied in almost all companies and in any industry, however, they need to make sure that it is applied in the right sense to gain its fruits. Moreover, companies need to make sure that they need agility in the first place before they go into the hustle of its implementation rather than just trying to follow a trending concept.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on January 07, 2022 and has been updated as of October 09, 2024.
Marketing capabilities reflect how organizations enhance their ability to learn and leverage the market to respond to customer changes accurately and efficiently. Various stakeholder expectations have to be fulfilled, and the need to constantly be responsive to internal and external stimuli makes it even more difficult to direct organizations’ marketing efforts. Indeed, to adapt to changing conditions rapidly, tourist marketers are forced to be more agile and capable of reacting quickly and easily to market changes.
Researchers defined agile marketing as a new marketing management approach based on practical learning and aimed at breaking the rigidity of traditional marketing. In particular, marketing encourages teams to work together on a common goal centered on customer needs and regularly checks for weak or unnecessary steps to adjust and optimize operations accordingly. Hence, agile marketing drives greater customer interaction and value, greater speed to market demand, and greater ability to adapt to changes as they occur.
This article will discuss agility and marketing capabilities by providing the recently conceptualized Agile Marketing Capability (AMC) framework. The discussion describes how firms may differ in the development and management of AMC through the identification of different maturity levels where maturity refers to the state of being ready. It explains how tourism marketing managers and practitioners could become more agile in their marketing capabilities, providing a useful tool to assess a firm’s current state of each capability maturity and to quickly grasp potential initiatives for improvement and enabling adaptation to a dynamic fast-changing environment especially in the context of MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) tourism, which comprises a large network of hospitality-related services such as accommodations, catering services, and transportation.
MICE represents a highly dynamic sector involved in a continuous exchange and allocation of resources and relationships for planning events to address and satisfy a variety of requests and needs where marketing efforts should be designed according to the variety of attendees so that their objectives and requirements are properly met.
The Emergence of the AMC Framework
According to the study, agility in the marketing field is the extent to which the company can predict and rapidly adapt to customer-based opportunities for innovation and improvement action. Therefore, marketing agility refers to being responsive to constantly changing customers’ expectations and needs and becoming flexible in designing objectives and allocating resources accordingly.
Marketing agility is the firm’s ability to reconfigure its marketing efforts at short notice, adapt to changing market conditions quickly, and fulfill market needs more effectively.
Despite the growing importance of agility in the marketing field, the mainstream strategy could not address agility properly in the context of corporate marketing capabilities. Early studies analyzed marketing capabilities from the resource-based view (RBV) perspective, assuming a static and internally driven approach. Over time, the 2011 research “Closing the Marketing Capabilities Gap” conducted by George Day began to be questioned because of its inability to adapt to a fast-changing business context.
Therefore, a new approach has emerged to aid in the development of new marketing capabilities to be able to grasp the firm’s capacity to sense the market and to look for different ways to reconfigure available resources accordingly. This led to the conceptualization of a different set of marketing capabilities oriented to more open and adaptive paths to fast-changing contexts. AMC Framework contributes by embedding agility that is better suited to align with the urgent need for the tourism industry to transform its business in a time of environmental turbulence.
Applying the AMC Framework
Held in 2019, the research study led by Emanuel Gomes alongside Carlos M.P. Sousa and Ferran Vendrell-Herrero defined AMC as the firm’s marketing capability to (1) constantly sense and respond to changes related to customer needs and requests; (2) follow an adaptive and flexible approach in dealing with changes; (3) create close work relationships among people and a collaborative working environment; and (4) continuously and quickly adjust and deliver new marketing plans (see Table 1). Those capabilities can be assessed through four maturity levels (see Table 2).
The AMC framework offers practical guidance on what strategic actions are needed for the implementation, development, and enhancement of agile marketing capabilities. Therefore, AMC could be used as a tool to assess the current state of maturity level in the development of the capabilities and to understand how to move through each maturity level, accurately implement improvement actions, and enable high-performance marketing.
Moreover, the framework can also support marketing managers in benchmarking and evaluating best practices across the tourism industry, improving marketing performance and being more adaptive to the changes in the market.
Tourism managers can use the AMC checklist for auditing how well their organization is implementing marketing agility and creating an action plan to achieve a higher level of maturity. Tourism firms can have practical guidelines to boost marketing capabilities by referring to the agile marketing capability maturity framework.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
That English proverb suggests that if someone has only a limited number of tools, instruments, or skills to resolve problems, they may be used in situations where they are not meant to be used.
If a business is facing a problem, they have to correctly identify it before it comes up with innovative ideas as their solution. To make sure that the solution can address the issue and bring in results, a company that operates like a tool factory should streamline its innovation process.
Incremental innovation
For instance, if a customer wants to use a screw to fix a picture on the wall, and the current tool they own, the hammer, is not suitable for this. With this, they may recommend and develop a better version of their already existing product.
The output could be a bigger hammer that would allow the customer to get the screw into the wall. This kind of innovation is called incremental innovation, which occurs when a company’s existing products or services have been upgraded to meet customer needs or further compete in the market.
For example, Apple Inc. originally created a touchscreen tablet, but now it combines the functions of an iPod, a cell phone, and an internet communication device.
If the tool factory wants to build an innovation culture within the organization, invest in research and development and intellectual resources and then come up with something new. This kind of innovation is called radical innovation, which refers to replacing existing products or services with new ones that have never been done before.
Amazon.com can be considered a radical innovator since it managed to revolutionize bookselling and introduced the portable wireless electronic reading device now popularly known as Kindle.
If the product innovation is successful and the customer buys the screwdriver and can fix their problem, this means that the tool factory can:
grow as they offer solutions for two types of issues
remain profitable since the customers who already have a hammer can now buy a screwdriver too
differentiate themselves from the other factories because they are offering something that competitors don’t.
Why innovation fails
However, a product innovation like the screwdriver could fail for many reasons.
One reason is innovation does not solve a customer’s problem all the time. For example, if the initial research was not correctly done, it could be possible that the customer needed only duct tape to put the picture on the wall. It may have nothing to do with the screwdriver because the customer does not have a screw.
Moreover, innovation may take too long to be launched in the market so the customer may look for other possible solutions. For instance, if the customer does not have the necessary tool to put the picture on the wall, they might buy a photo album and use it for all their other pictures in the future.
Another reason why ideas may fail is they are underfunded or poorly launched. If the company does not have the right marketing strategy for the screwdriver, people won’t hear about it and therefore, won’t be able to use it.
The execution of ideas requires time and resources too. The manufacturing machines used to develop the screwdriver are expensive. It takes a lot of time for employees to learn the manufacturing process and how to use the machines.
An iconic example of innovation failure was the Galaxy Foldable Phone by Samsung, which meant to offer large screens in small spaces to customers. However, when the device is folded, customers don’t find it comfortable to carry. It is also deemed too fragile. Because of this, the production of the device lasted for only a few months and then it was halted.
If businesses want to make product innovation work, they have to do their research properly and understand what customers actually need. Businesses must also allocate enough resources to develop new types of instruments.
If there is a new product, businesses must develop and test product prototypes first and identify all the possible problems that may come with it. It is also important to invest in introducing a new product to customers and educating them on how to use it. The most important thing is not to screw up, but to nail it!
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on August 20, 2021 and last updated on October 09, 2024.
Innovation entails coming up with something completely new or creating a huge concept. Nothing will change if you just fully accept the realities at work or in your personal life which is why innovation frequently begins with something that concerns and is important to you. This stems from the desire to alter certain things to be better because it is necessary.
Some companies out there are struggling without proper knowledge of innovation. You have a better chance of reacting to changes and discovering new possibilities if you innovate. It may also aid in the development of competitive advantage by allowing you to create better goods and services for your clients.
There are four types of innovation that can take place within a company:
Organizational innovation – this transforms a company’s business processes, as well as the way its workplace is structured as well as its connections with external stakeholders.
Process innovation – the implementation of a new or improved production or delivery is the approach with this type of innovation, including changes in operational processes, techniques, and equipment or software.
Product innovation – referring to the introduction of new or enhanced products or services, this kind of innovation may relate to enhancing technical standards, materials, or software, or even boosting user experience.
Marketing innovation – this refers to the development of a new marketing strategy such as the packaging or design of a product, as well as other pricing or promotional decisions.
Promoting Workplace Innovation
Rather than aiming to rebuild the entire company at once, consider developing ideas that can be tested in your own community first. As you prepare to take your idea to a much wider stage, this might be an excellent way to fine-tune your efforts and assess your performance. Setting up suggestion boxes around the office or hosting frequent seminars or company away days to explore ideas are just a few examples. This will also create a friendly environment for employees to express themselves without fear of being criticized or ridiculed.
Leaders should always have the courage to take risks and experiment with new ideas. They should also encourage their employees as well and not penalize them whenever they try new ideas and fail. Emphasizing the shared responsibility for innovation to employees at all levels of the organization will foster a feeling of involvement in the movement of the company. The fewer levels of administration or decision-making are in your organization, the more employees will believe their ideas are valued.
Business owners should examine the market and customers’ needs and not immediately create a big development to be released in a short period of time. Studying the market and learning how innovation may bring value to consumers is important, especially if you want to propel your firm ahead. By adjusting your product or service to the way your market is evolving, you may explore other possibilities for innovation.
For example, the current market is becoming health-conscious, even more so due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A food industrialist can try to launch new flavors, adjust your ingredients to be more health-conscious, and promote them in a better way to reach customers. For those in the education field, they could organize class conferencing apps like Zoom or Microsoft Teams to ensure the safety of students while continuing their education.
Making Plans for Innovation
Generally, innovation should be part of your company’s strategic vision of how you want your firm to evolve. Once you’ve spent time researching trends for your business sector, you can then focus your inventive efforts on the most significant areas. Not only will innovation help your firm survive, but it will also help it expand and generate more revenues.
There are a variety of practical methods for determining whether or not your ideas have profit potential. Studying the market or industry trends and being aware of the environment your organization operates will assist you in planning. You can find competitors via a number of ways such as local corporate lists, advertising, and exhibitions. You can also find those with similar products through online searches, information from customers, or pamphlets.
You may also support your innovation-driven development such as gaining financial investors or even through loans. Any route to external investment, however, will need a high-quality business plan that outlines your company and provides specific projections for its future. Depending on their borrowing needs, businesses frequently resort to their banks for a line of credit or loans.
Boosting Innovation
Communication is very important to both your customers and suppliers. Building a good relationship with clients will make them realize that the company is providing effective products and services for them to make the business grow better. By communicating with them, you will be able to listen to their opinions and observe their behavior around your current products and services. From there, you can produce new ideas and promote improvements in your current products and services.
You can also expand your business by giving opportunities for suppliers and business partners to be involved in the company’s plans for innovation. This allows them to provide unique ideas as well. Merging your abilities with those of your suppliers or other business partners might help you generate and develop new ideas. Opportunities for business networking might also lead to the formation of potential collaborations.
Although innovation can occur in any department of a company, it has the potential to affect the whole corporation. To achieve innovation through creativity, you have to find the right amount of challenges and don’t be afraid to take risks; failure is not constant and every problem can have a solution. It’s also important to experiment with an idea first before implementing it by involving your employees in conversations so they can also provide better ideas to improve the company.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on December 15, 2021 and last updated on September 18, 2024.
Considering innovation as a system and having a goal to embed it within one’s organization is neither an easy task nor an impossible one. If this is the primary objective, and if this aligns with the consensus of all stakeholders, it becomes crucial, before commencing any actions, to adopt a mindset focused on innovation, akin to how one concentrates on developing the organizational direction to enhance revenue and profit.
This implies that to succeed, the same level of effort and methodology must be directed towards developing the organizational strategy and executing the most effective and efficient innovation methods. This involves clarifying the purpose, establishing the right mission (the reason behind the initiative and the desired impact), and defining values (principles guiding all stakeholders). Internal environmental analysis (identifying organizational strengths and weaknesses related to capabilities, resources, assets, skills, and competencies) and external environmental analysis (recognizing external opportunities and threats) are also crucial. Subsequent steps include performing SWOT analysis (aligning external opportunities and threats with internal strengths and weaknesses), conducting scenario planning (suggesting strategic scenarios based on SWOT analysis alignment to set necessary objectives), and identifying value drivers (features distinguishing the value generated from the innovation strategy).
Based on the aforementioned, it’s imperative to create a vision (the long-term goal for the innovation system), establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) objectives, select appropriate and balanced key performance indicators (KPIs), develop sound and aligned initiatives (supporting the achievement of selected KPI targets and objectives), and consequently, disseminate the entire innovation strategy throughout the organization at all levels.
Consequently, all stakeholders must align themselves, identify their needs and expectations, and determine how to meet these through the innovation strategy. Subsequently, they should proceed with the execution process, understanding and acknowledging the clear alignment between the innovation strategy and the organizational strategy.
It is essential to view the innovation strategy as a core success domain for the organization, understanding that progress, improvement, and profit growth are interdependent with the innovation system. Moreover, it’s crucial to ensure the involvement of all stakeholders in this system, while embedding continuous improvement as the primary driver in maturing the system over time. Similar to excellence, innovation maturity is an ongoing journey that continually brings added value, which should be appreciated and built upon.
The fourth industrial revolution has commenced. Linking it with innovation, transformation, future forecasting, and future change is pertinent, as they are all directly driven by and enabled by data management. Nowadays, the primary infrastructure for any company worldwide transitions from physical premises and branches to the cloud, where data are structured, organized, and interconnected, drawn from various sources such as customer interactions, product and service utilization, service and product development phases, defect management, product degradation, input and output resources.
This transition highlights that numerous data sources have been in place, yet not all have been utilized, analyzed, and transformed into information and knowledge. The shift towards big data and the advancements in artificial intelligence and conditional monitoring have changed the landscape. Decisions are now based on data, not just analyzed to reflect the current state but also organized and correlated to predict the future, facilitating decisions that secure not only the present or short-term future but also the long-term future.
This evolution underscores the importance of starting with the development of the right architecture to link various data sources, leveraging their mutual support and integration for greater benefit. It involves embedding in this architecture the correlation of data from different sources to build new components in the system architecture, adding value to the overall system. Understanding this aspect emphasizes the need to benefit from all data sources and install more sensors in development processes, products, streets, houses, cars, and everywhere, moving towards a products-as-a-service paradigm and eventually achieving the end goal of a planet-as-a-service, where data from everywhere are fed, analyzed, and used to identify new information and knowledge for the benefit of all.
The case study “Apple’s Future: Apple Watch, Apple TV, and/or Apple Car?” narrates Apple’s journey focusing on three products: smartwatches, smart TVs, and smart cars. It highlights how Apple has targeted the market and addressed customer needs to increase global market share and profit while enhancing the brand image. While this approach appears commendable, it aligns with the traditional viewpoint that continuous profit growth sustains a business.
However, from an alternative perspective, Apple has consistently aimed to shift from the red-ocean to the blue-ocean strategy, moving away from competition. The increasing number of competitors, open-source software, and global innovations necessitates larger leaps. Apple’s success also stems from co-creating value with its customers, understanding their needs, and embracing innovation and change.
Another facet is that Apple’s current endeavors represent a short-term strategy aimed at long-term value generation and delivery. Data serves as the primary driver, with all products and services yielding valuable data. This contradicts the notion that customers don’t know what they want; rather, it underscores the importance of understanding customer pain points and co-creating value with them.
Apple’s products evolve based on collected data and usage behaviors, generating new value with each iteration. The incorporation of health data into products like the smartwatch and analyzing consumer behaviors allows Apple to add value beyond traditional usage scenarios. Ultimately, Apple’s strategy mirrors a child playing a PlayStation game, controlling and directing the world.
While this may seem daunting and scary, proper use of data-driven strategies can benefit everyone, provided they are employed ethically and responsibly and not end up as Mikhail Kalashnikov puts it: “The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics.”
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About the Author
Malek Ghazo is a seasoned Senior Management Consultant with over 14 years of experience in the realm of organizational excellence (EFQM, 4G, Malcolm Baldrige), performance management, strategy planning/execution, and sustainability/CSR management. Throughout his career, he has cultivated expertise in developing benchmarking studies on an international scale. His clientele primarily consists of both public and private sector entities, to whom he provides invaluable services in organizational excellence, strategy planning and agile execution, KPIs and performance management models development and deployment, as well as EFQM model adoption and implementation. Geographically, Mr. Ghazo has dedicated his efforts to Europe (with a focus on the UK) and the Middle East, particularly in KSA, UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. Currently, he is engaged in pursuing his PhD at the University of Pécs in Hungary, with a focus on exploring the correlation between circular economy and organizational excellence and sustainability, aiming towards global sustainability.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 26, 2024 and last updated on September 17, 2024.
