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Business change has always been a fact of life, but it really seems that change has been shifting into high gear in recent times. Multiple forces are at work, from globalization and outsourcing to advances in communications. These forces are opening up new business opportunities, but they also pose major challenges. Your customers and suppliers are changing the ways they operate and are expecting new things from your company and from your competitors as well.
The challenge is simple to articulate, but more difficult to address: Flexibility and adaptability must be key parts of any company growth strategy, pointing to new opportunities, or at least allowing you to be responsive to the opportunities that may be identified by others. Failure to build these components into your basic thinking will effectively close the door on your company’s future. This makes the movement toward what could be called an "adaptive enterprise" a necessity, regardless of how large you may be today.
Flexibility can be especially important when it comes to what would otherwise be missed opportunities. A flexible company can minimize a potentially adverse impact by taking timely action. Given the number of new ideas that come from your company compared with the number of new ideas that come from everywhere else, including your customers, competitors, and other industry experts, it seems likely that others may end up with a head start on the next innovation that will affect your industry. If you haven’t fostered an environment that can support regular revision of policies and business processes, you could find yourself at a serious competitive disadvantage. Technology can play a key role in keeping that from happening. Effective resources for communications and development can help you react to change, but even more important, they will be the tools that will help you predict and anticipate changes. (And ideally, they will help you make changes in the business environment that will have your competitors scrambling to respond!)
This paper examines the related issues of growth and flexibility from a number of perspectives, but at the heart of the issue is your company’s ability to meet changing customer requirements and drive revenue growth in a continually changing environment. Almost everyone can do a better job in preparing for these shifts, and your company culture will be an important starting point in guiding your efforts to improve your "flexibility and adaptability quotient."
Companies rarely think about flexibility as a key attribute, even though the ability to capitalize on opportunities and the ability to respond to threats are the keys to longterm success. Business strength is often thought of in financial terms - your bankers will make sure you have the basic strength you need (the money or lines of credit). In addition, your board or legal advisors will make sure you have succession and business continuity plans to stay in operation over time, the equivalent of endurance. But flexibility is hard to measure and often ignored despite its importance.
A good starting place to assess your flexibility can be an appreciation of what your business purpose really is. Focusing on your core mission (like Western Union with its focus on funds transfer) can keep you tuned to changing ways of doing business independent of any particular approach (transferring money by telegraph - a less useful corporate mission these days). If you are an industry or segment leader, you likely have the mechanisms in place to identify new opportunities and move forward to capitalize on them. For everyone else, though, it can take additional discipline to make the effort to monitor and adjust to a changing competitive environment. Potential threats to your business can also be addressed if appropriate tools and resources are in place to assess and respond to developments quickly and efficiently.
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