Find out how to adopt an agile approach to see your offshore business thrive
Key takeaways:
Older businesses had a more traditional, non-agile approach to product creation and offshoring.
Companies today need to be agile if they wish to compete effectively.
One of the main benefits of business agility is customer satisfaction because it allows services and products to be tailored for the client.
Business agility leads to more successes than failures.
Having the right team by your side can help your business be agile.
Organizations need to be nimble. The marketplace changes often, regardless of your industry, and it demands fast adaptability for growth.
The easiest and most effective way to get customer feedback is for companies to simply ask. This helps companies adapt to the changing conditions of the market and business in general.
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, offshore businesses capitalize on economic savings while serving customers in the best possible ways. This is where the agile approach comes in. It focuses on quality interactions between businesses and customers and provides an increased ability to change course based on customer feedback.
Let’s face it – being in business can be tough, especially when you have several competitors that seem to be doing things right. That said, your company will see major benefits from being agile in its operations. Here are seven key reasons an offshore business should always strive to be agile.
1. Customer satisfaction
First off, what is business agility? As the name implies, it’s simply a way for businesses to remain agile when markets fluctuate and adapt to internal and external changes. When you need to restructure your operations, the customer should be at the center. When adopting an agile framework, the customer’s needs are key when making decisions. This is because it helps a business attract new clients and retain existing customers.
By incorporating customer feedback into the loop, changes are made by the business to reflect feedback. This way, the customer enjoys maximum value for their money and the final product is tailored to match their needs.
Being agile and getting feedback from your clients not only applies to customers but very importantly, to stakeholders. Stakeholders need to be involved as they are part and parcel of the entity. The benefit of having everyone on board is that all assumptions and ideas can be tested in real-time.
2. Failures are faster and fewer
Most businesses spend millions of dollars on up-front research and development instead of waiting months to launch their product. Being agile in business will allow you to move fast when something doesn’t work.
Offshore companies need to test a lot of processes before they are up and running. By being agile, the progress of your project is assessed regularly and the ROI is enjoyed immediately. Agility also allows you to take in the failures fast and switch to something that is working. This can come in handy in an offshore business that employs several foreign individuals and has many moving parts.
Being agile in business also means you become better at risk management. When adopting the agile framework, you will not have to wait 18 months, for example, to get feedback that you made the wrong product. Instead, you deliver early and get feedback that allows you to eliminate the risk of creating a faulty product.
3. Improves the quality of your output
In the traditional way of doing business, workers often feel obliged to make a product or offer a service without considering whether it’ll satisfy the customer. This can lead to customer dissatisfaction. When a business decides to use the agile approach, they do not consider the use of their resources first. Instead, the company will focus on the needs of the client, allowing them to make high-quality goods and services. A business has to ensure that the output is optimized for the client first and not the business.
4. Allows a business to be efficient
The agile approach employs the principle of “learn as we go.” This means there are no initial humongous investments that can turn out to be a total waste. Instead, companies focus on creating a tailor-made solution that the market needs.
In today’s economy, companies should strive to reduce waste by ensuring their market solutions are on demand. Being agile allows a business to streamline all its operations to make it an efficient and flexible company.
5. Improved predictability
Predictability is becoming one of the most important values in the current marketplace. No matter how fast your team can deliver, it will be hard to sustain a business without predictability. The best way to ensure you achieve predictable velocity at producing something is by ensuring that all aspects of the process are manageable and predictable.
The agile approach allows predictability. This is because it helps an offshore organization identify risks and ensure the offshore project is executed without hitches.
6. Employee satisfaction
Agility requires the employees in a firm to get heavily involved in the process. They get to interact with stakeholders and address all the critical issues that they might have.
In this agile business approach, companies emphasize proper communication instead of excessive documentation. This helps to create cohesion among employees while making them feel like they are part of the business, too. It also allows a company to continue its operations without having to micromanage its staff.
7. Continuous improvement
Adopting the agile approach means that you will always be improving your products or services. An agile business takes in client feedback and uses it to improve its offerings. If you are constantly using the feedback from your clients to customize your services then it will not take long before you have a quality offering.
The approach also encourages an open culture where collaboration is harnessed and the exchange of ideas is cultivated. This makes it possible for offshore team members to share and learn, hence improving each other’s processes.
Let Doxa7 help you adopt the agile approach in your offshore business
Agility allows businesses to quickly make modifications and gives the client a real-time ROI. There is no denying that this methodology comes with a learning curve. Having the right professionals to help you streamline your business processes will make all the difference.
DOXA can help your business adopt the agile approach. We help small to medium-sized businesses build high-performing, scalable, global teams. Simply contact us today for a quick consultation.
