Overnight, COVID-19 fundamentally changed the way we work. During this unique time, many organizations have had to adapt to distributed work environments quickly. While trends have long indicated the future of work would be remote, leveraging the cloud and the shelter-in-place orders around the world forced firms to adapt overnight. The change that was anticipated as incremental over multiple years was accelerated by days — pushing the percentage of remote employees at most organizations from 10% to 100% over the span of a few days.
As organizations continue to be disrupted by new technology and changing competitive landscapes, software teams must transform the way they do business to meet the challenge of this disruption to stay ahead of the competition.
To borrow a quote from Jack Welsh, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, then the end is near.”
This is particularly true for technology companies. History is littered with companies that thought they had a significant footprint in the industry, appeared to be top performers and were the darlings of Wall Street, and then soon after became irrelevant when market turbulence disrupted its technology or methodologies.
Why does this happen?
Many companies face this scenario. They have a very successful business that is growing with no issues in sight. There are, however, always challenges to navigate. Unfortunately, no one is paying attention or thinking proactively. The company is successful, so its people are focused on continuing to do what they do, but just doing it a little better.
The success of the business is further locking the organization into its business model and practices.
As a visionary leader, what can you do to adapt to new realities and accelerate your transformation?
You have to take the change forced by COVID-19 to serve as a catalyst for your new vision and accelerate the necessary changes.
This new and unexpected disruption is accelerating the need to think through our cost structures and develop and adopt more innovative digital solutions. Start reimaging your new reality with our Pivoting to New Realities: Cost Optimization webinar here.
Then, take a look at how your organization measures up to world-class providers, including companies outside of your industry. Make some baseline comparisons to help identify activities you could be doing. The objective of benchmarking is to find examples of superior performance or behaviors to help you understand the processes and practices involved to deliver that level of performance and assess how you perform vs. a world-class organization. The gaps and subsequent ideas generated from this exercise will help you create a vision for the future, ideas for innovation, and help you rise to the challenges presented by COVID-19.
Key areas to explore should include:
- Product and technical comparisons for gaps in your product and ideas for future growth
- Practices for innovation of new products and services
- Opportunities to improve productivity to free up resources for future innovation
- Team organization for enhanced collaboration and time to market
Once you’ve identified your prospects, it’s time to create a plan of action. With some preparation and discipline, COVID-19 can drive a level of change that is welcomed and can be measured to ensure progress.
Benchmarking is a great way to inspire and identify areas of potential opportunity. Regardless of the motivation, generating an external view of your company, industry and competitors is a valuable part of managing in this world of constant change. If this is uncharted territory for you and your organization, consider bringing in some outside perspective to assist with the activity and lend an independent point of view. Get started here.
