Agility is not an end in itself, it is a solution for continuous adaptation to change.
For companies, agility is not an end in itself. It is an essential condition for adapting to continue creating value in a world of profound change.
The World is VUCA
Our companies evolve in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment in which traditional reference points are shattered.
- Everything is changing rapidly such as the geopolitical situation, society, economic markets, and technologies, regulations.
- The world of tomorrow has become unpredictable. The recent global health crisis has clearly demonstrated this.
- The multiplication of interactions and decision-making criteria makes it more difficult to read and understand.
- The evolution of the relationships between the players in the ecosystem creates ambiguity: yesterday's competitors (GAFA) are becoming partners
An Acceleration of Market Developments
In addition, the Covid-19 crisis has significantly accelerated changes in the behavior of customers.
- Since the end of lockdowns, customers are using more digital and social networks.
- Customers are increasingly demanding. They expect, in response to their needs, trusted solutions that are immediately available online. Digital platforms are offering them more autonomy and customization possibilities, while guaranteeing them a high level of security.
- Customers are far more attentive to the integration of the CSR dimension in solutions.
- Customer experience is becoming increasingly important.
These signals, sent by the market, are constantly changing. Their integration leads companies to change direction while trying to stay on course. These changes can be quite disruptive for the teams.
Rapid Change in the Businesses
The ecosystem of telecom operators is also undergoing a major evolution. The upcoming deployment of the 5G core network will accelerate the evolution towards the "softwarization" of networks. To become more flexible; more powerful; and more intelligent, networks are increasingly managed like software. Soon they will also integrate the Telco Cloud and artificial intelligence.
This growing transformation of networks is bringing together the telecom and IT businesses, which have very different approaches by nature. The world of network manufacturers, led by historical European and Asian players, has developed according to traditional "V-cycle" methods, with reliable, high-performance solutions. The world of IT, driven in particular by the Americans, has already reached a high level of maturity in agile mode. The convergence of networks and IT is shaking up culture, values, and practices. It will have a strong impact on business lines and skill requirements. It is important to support this change of reference points and this transformation of the network professions.
Agility: A Solution for Managing Permanent Change
Agility is not an end in itself, it is a solution for continuous adaptation to change.
Agility is another way of working and operating which assists the company to develop its business and create value more quickly. It allows the company to prioritize projects within a strategy and improves time to market. Based on the principle of continuous small changes, it limits risk taking.
The agility approach must be global. It must take into account the company's external partners, in order to be practiced from end-to-end. We often forget that certain partners, who are already agile, can play a role in accelerating the transformation and complete or even encourage the spread of this agility culture.
Agility is oriented towards customer’s satisfaction. It delivers to the customer a solution that is less complete than with the traditional method, but integrates the most important expected functionalities. It verifies that this V1 meets the customer's needs and then integrates in the V2 answers to the new needs of the customer or the moment.
It contributes to employee’s satisfaction. In an increasingly complex and uncertain environment, it gives them visibility on a course and then leaves them autonomy on how to manage the project as closely as possible to the customer's needs. Agility brings together IT and business functions, which are often in conflict over budgets. This alignment between the teams favors the development of automation and the refocusing on value-added functions.
