2 minute read
FINAL WORD
Stay agile to beat the scrum
TOBY ROBINS discusses how agile businesses succeeded during the pandemic, and why they must continue to adapt, especially to hybrid working conditions, to keep team morale high
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Agility. Take a course at the Cranfield School of Management and you’ll find it’s a popular word. To me, it suggests the back line of a rugby team - the Shane Williams, Rory Underwoods and Cheslin Kolbes of the world, racing forward, only to be confronted by a massive, immovable block of humanity or two. The rapid assessment of risk and opportunity before jinking left or right, running through, or tapping the ball through or over, or accepting support from others - it’s a mental and physical agility that is paralleled in the business world.
It takes courage to run at someone twice your size, and the same is true of getting up every day, and confronting the challenges before you, knowing your team depends on you and your judgement.
Like a tap tackle from behind, it isn’t always obvious where the threats are coming from. The World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Risks Report had the spread of infectious diseases at number 10 for the perceived threats with the greatest impact.
However well you read the game, you are not likely to have seen the COVID threat coming. Sadly, some businesses were brought down by it. I prefer to celebrate those that showed their agility and found opportunities and the path to break through and cross the line.
PPE, sanitisers and screens created new opportunities seized by many while the disease was rampant - but what of the opportunities for the changed world we now live in? Working from home has changed the marketplace and driven digitalisation. Coming from a couple of decades of chasing price-focused, commercial tenders, it seems to me there may be new opportunities.
The cheap functionality of contract office products does not sit well in the domestic environment. People at home look for the pleasure of writing in a beautiful notebook with a smoothwriting, solid-feeling pen. Desk accessories need to satisfy the aesthetics of the home. It’s a flight to quality away from price-sensitivity; an opportunity to increase cash margin by marketing directly to your local marketplace and upselling directly to the end-user.
Then there’s the corporate perspective. Ask yourself why you like working where you do? Is it the work you do? The people with whom you work? If you’ve been working from home, do you feel as much a part of the team as you did before, or do you feel the loss of those water cooler conversations - a lost camaraderie eroding the bonds that held you together?
These are concerns held by clients seeking to manage a dispersed workforce. There is business risk from people becoming increasingly isolated, depressed and, consequently, less productive, as well as from having to recruit and train replacements as staff turnover ticks up.
Like all risk, it creates opportunity. Why not suggest to clients they provide corporate branded products to keep remote staff engaged? From mugs and notebooks to promotional products like blankets, scarves, plants, beer and gin. Are you bold enough to move towards a servitisation model and offer staff surveys to gauge wellbeing and host team-building forums?
Keep your business lean, fit and agile, be as passionate and committed as an international rugby player, and keep on winning.
