How business leaders can drive business agility to thrive in an era of rapid change

Mumbai’s famous black-and-yellow cabs face the crisis of their lives. A business model that seemed set in stone is suddenly as certain as a mirage. First came radio taxis, but government protectionism tripped that challenge. But today, even protectionism can’t protect the dinosaurs as companies like Uber, turn the taxi business on its head globally through new business models, even as customers now have powerful voices through the social media revolution in case any protectionist tendencies come up. That’s just an example of the fact that nothing is certain in the world of business today. Change–and often unseen, disruptive and painful change–is the constant. And as business organisations fail to handle change there’s pain–as the global taxicab business is experiencing. As established business models collapse like ninepins, what are business leaders to do? Perhaps the best quality that business leaders can impart to their business organisations to be able to embrace change even when it is not foreseen, is agility. But can agility be developed quickly and on-demand? As business leader and possible 2016 US Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina once put it, technology is the great leveller. “Technology permits anybody to play.” Not just any technology model though. For instance, as a business leader in operations you may realise you want to not only change, but bring in rapid innovation into how your organisation delivers customer service. A few years ago, that meant a complex technology-driven project that could take a year. Today, your business could be dead if that happens as nimbler competitors will deliver that innovation and customers will move away. Accelerate Business Process Innovation The smart answer lies in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Business-Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS). No more complex technology projects with cost and time overruns but business value to your organisation faster. You pay for an application or service on a pay-per-use or a similar OPEX model. So, you can deploy quickly and keep CAPEX in check. As you leverage SaaS and BPaaS, you can accelerate business process innovation, as you for instance deliver customer service through a whole new medium like social or instant messaging and thus meet your customers’ aspirations at their point of need. You can deliver insights from what was earlier mere data through the power of analytics and do this at the point of impact. And in this age of collaboration you can also connect people with collaborative networks to collaborate and deliver innovation aided by increased productivity.

Deliver Analytics at point of contact Take actual business experiences. A major global airline focused their SaaS analytics on improving customer experience and saw an increase in the number and value of flight bookings–true innovation delivered to customers that resulted in significant business value to the airline. Another company, SafeGuard World, into global managed payroll and outsourcing, saw a deep 20 percent reduction in implementation time for many projects by leveraging SaaS and BPaaS applications–delivering customer and employee delight while reducing time and cost for the company. A telecom expense management business process as a service (BPaaS) not only reduced costly telecom expenses for a global organisation but also integrated perfectly with existing enterprise business processes and systems, with extensive customization that allowed a workflow to be tailored to support multiple integration points for the processing of telecom expense records. IBM for instance offers over 100 best-in-class software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and business process-as-a-service (BPaaS) capabilities, all delivered with enterprise-grade security, availability and elasticity. These applications and capabilities can empower business functions across the organisation, ranging from marketing operations, digital analytics and merchandising for your Marketing team, sourcing and procurement applications and capabilities for Procurement, B2B collaboration and supplier management for Supply Chain, territory management, commerce storefronts and trade promotion optimization for Sales and Commercial, risk management and territory reporting for Finance, cognitive insights and collaborative workflow for Customer Care, human capital management (HCM) for Human Resources and which also includes contract management, risk analytics and IP management for the Legal department.

While SaaS definitely reduces costs, the bigger benefit lies in competitive advantage as SaaS transforms businesses and competitive advantage comes from speed, both in terms of time to value and agility to make future changes; and innovation, made possible by freed up IT resources and the unique advantages of cloud solutions over on-premise solutions. Some business leaders also mistakenly feel that SaaS is not for large organisations but for SMEs. Fact is, large companies face the same challenges of economics, agility, innovation, competitive advantage, and more. And SaaS is what solves these challenges. Indeed, many companies are now taking a ‘SaaS-first’ approach to business applications. Another fear with Cloud and SaaS is that of security. But nothing could be further from the truth. SaaS applications and capabilities from companies like IBM come with highly available dedicated firewalls to protect and segregate components, smart network monitoring that also uses security analytics, anti-malware solutions, an endpoint manager for patching and health checking, data encryption when data is in motion and even at rest if necessary, latest security standards, auditable processes, etc. It’s as secure, if not more, than hosting in your own premise.

Connect and Collaborate But can you leverage SaaS well without traditional IT model as some say you can? While most of today’s professionals grew in their careers focusing deep on one area such as technology or sales or finance, business leaders have to combine skills to deliver agility. In marketing for instance, Gartner analyst Laura McLellan says there is a need for a Chief Marketing Technology (CMT) rather than just a CMO. “The CMT breaks down silos, will be a change agent throughout the company and unify customer experience,” tweeted McLellan. However don’t throw IT out – an IBM study found that in successful SaaS and BPaaS adopters Line of Business (LoB) and IT strongly collaborate on SaaS selection and deployment through a strategic partnership. Change demands agility and agility demands SaaS. Smart business leaders at smart companies that are setting the pace for competitors are leading this adoption and putting their money where their mouth is. Proof of that lies in numbers. The SaaS market is among the fastest growing segments in technology, growing at a CAGR of 24 percent to reach by $66.9 billion 2016 and the applications segment is expected to grow to $36.9 billion by 2016. As a business leader, looking closely at SaaS and BPaaS will not only make your organisation Agile and ready for change, but may be the smartest business decision in your career. Click here to know more about SaaS.