“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change”
You’ve likely seen this quote attributed to Charles Darwin. In fact, he famously never said it.
That honor instead belongs to a business professor named Leon C. Megginson. And although the words will likely have been inspired by Darwin, the fact they came from a businessperson and not a biologist makes them all the more apt. Especially when we view them in line with today’s fast-moving world.
Since the start of COVID-19, being able to adapt has been essential to survival. But the reality is, even as the crisis matures and (eventually) passes, the business landscape will be subject to constant change.
So, once again, becoming an adaptive organization, particularly for public sector bodies and departments, will be a prerequisite to futureproof operations against all forms of disruption – be it societal, geopolitical or health related.
Fortunately, most enterprises agree, as backed up by the fact that in our recent research report, Fragile to Agile, 77% of organizations said they needed to be able to respond faster to market uncertainty and change.
Below, I’ve explored some of ways businesses can in-build adaptability into everyday operations, to support you on your journey to overcoming and flourishing in the face of even the most unexpected challenges.
Digitalizing your core and embracing cloud
In order to build adaptability into the everyday, organizations must first strive to digitalize the core of their operations. With digital core simply meaning the technology, platforms and applications that allow organizations to transform into digital businesses and meet the new needs of the digital economy.
By developing a digital core, this can drive efficiencies, expand the digitization of key business processes and enable new ways of execution – so you can keep up with demand and meet customers where they are.
But this becomes a challenge when we consider that over the years, many companies will have built up organizational and technical debt. Or the accumulation of shortcuts and compromises made to just get it done, with the fallout being a snowball of weighed-down people, platforms and processes.
Overcoming it isn’t always straightforward either, with many businesses blissfully unaware of this debt, while others simply don’t know where to begin. Fortunately, it needn’t be so difficult – physically or fiscally – with the emergence of cloud.
Cloud computing can provide enterprises, of all shapes and sizes, with the ability to reduce technical debt by removing the burden of maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure of data centers or legacy on-premise systems. As well as freeing up valuable time, capital and resource to focus on developing new and innovative solutions.
In addition to this, by embracing cloud as part of your transformation journey, this is a giant leap to becoming an adaptive organization, with its cost efficiency, business continuity, scalability and digital-enabling abilities. It’s for this reason more and more businesses are looking to the cloud, with public cloud infrastructure set to grow by 35% in In 2021.
Leveraging data and emerging technologies
In addition to digitalizing your core and lifting and shifting to the cloud, part and parcel of becoming an adaptive organization requires the use of emerging technologies and data, to create enriching experiences for both your employees and customers.
In today’s digital economy, data is the lifeblood that flows throughout any business to inform decision-making and help you enhance experiences. But it’s also essential that it’s democratized and decentralized to avoid bottlenecks and permit every person in an organization to arrive at the same data-driven conclusions, as explored in Fragile to Agile. Unlocking its full capabilities also requires effective data sources that can be integrated across the business.
Furthermore, in the wake of COVID-19, we’ve heard a lot about the necessity to pivot – and data is essential in determining where and how to pivot. Of course, it’s impossible to predict a global pandemic, but data is the best form of defence when it comes to dealing with the unexpected and in-building resilience into the very fabric of your operations.
Progressive businesses are also looking to emerging technologies, such as automation and AI, to reduce the technical and organizational debt by removing manual, mundane overheads and freeing up workforces to focus on more business-critical – and fulfilling – responsibilities.
Once again, cloud is the engine that powers those technologies, whereas data is the fuel it uses to generate something – and the more data we put through machine learning models, the better they get. Ultimately serving to drive transformed business models, inform greater experiences and empower people to innovate and deliver more meaningful interactions with your customers with data as the fuel used to drive an intelligent output.
But above all, it’s imperative that your data is secure. Suffering a data breach and the reputational damage that comes with this is arguably the single biggest driver of a bad customer experience. After all, consumers trust you with their data, but once this trust is gone, in almost every case, so too is their custom with your organization.
Build adaptability into everyday operations with Fujitsu
On your journey to becoming an adaptive organization, it pays to work with a like-minded partner with expertise in supporting digital transformation, enriching experiences and helping businesses to unlock the potential of data and emerging technologies.
Fujitsu has already supported some of the most highly-regulated, heavyweight and risk averse institutions in both enterprise and government to become adaptive, without ever compromising on security and compliance.
Get in touch today to see how our human-centric vision and best-in-class technology can help you to build adaptability into everyday operations.
