The Digital Organization is Time Sensitive

It doesn't matter if an organization is racing the competition to the next set of turns or trying to conserve fuel for the long race ahead, being time sensitive is something to master well. Organizations are having to deal with expanding complexity and increased time pressures. If you have ever had the chance to race ultra fast cars, you will find that your decisions and reactions have to step up in speed. Speed to adaptation is the new goal in today's economy. I believe the same thing is happening in the business world. I'd like to dig into five areas that are facing many organizations.

Time to Intercept the Market:

Customers are not just satisfied with commodity goods and services. They want organizations to understand them and deliver options tailored to their individual needs. This means that organizations have to quickly deliver products, services, terms, conditions and innovations that meet their evolving needs. For those organizations dealing with brittle or embedded processes, systems and people will be at a great disadvantage.

Time to Deal with Constituent On Going Needs:

Just because you win a customer, partner, vendor or employee to your organization does not mean your get to keep them. You can throw loyalty out the window these days. If you do not provide excellent and timely services to any of your constituents, you risk losing them today and for the foreseeable future. This is a new kind of CRM that considers a wider context that includes reputation and how fast stories of bad service can spread in social media. Trolls ignored, you can be hurt quickly these days.

Time to Respond to Opportunities:

Organizations have to perceive opportunities quickly and take advantage of them when the present themselves. This means moving past the "muscle memory" of your organization and mine for opportunities in real time as well as looking at the past missed opportunities. This may require innovative thought presented from unlikely sources. Patterns of opportunity are fleeting, so seek them with vigor.

Time to Avoid Threats:

Organizations had better perceive threats early and react to them in real time as threats can take an organization out quickly these days. There is a need for diligence in seeking patterns of threat in this changing world. Once detected, levels of defense need to be cobbled together with great speed.

Time to Anticipate the Future:

If one could tell the future, we all would be in a better place. Since we mere mortals, do not have a crystal ball to predict the future. While we can use predictive analytics on a small scale problems, there is a need to do scenario planning for probable large scale options. For those organizations that want to be more complete, scenario planning driven by any possibility might be prudent. This is where simulation and the study of "black swan" alternatives makes sense.

Net; Net:

If you don't pay attention to your lap times, you will get passed by your competition. It's very important to focus in on the acceleration that is happening in the world today in order to survive, thrive and exhibit competitive advantage. Keep in mind that some things move at slower pace, but those are becoming rare in today's world of keen competition.

More Reading: http://jimsinur.blogspot.com/2014/01/time-to-market-pressure-is-putting-on.html