Agile or extinct?

COVID-19 is the 'asteroid' to the 'dinosaur' firms that are not rapidly transforming.?The?average tenure of?the?S&P 500 index firms keeps reducing, down from 33 years in?1965?to less than 16 years in 2018. The pandemic has further accelerated this digital extinction. Firms that have failed to transform have been "Good to Great to Gone" like circuit city.?'Digital?migrant'?firms need rapid and continuous transformation to thrive with the digital-native firms that are disrupting every industry. For example, fintech firms compete with banks and other financial institutions; Amazon and Walmart eCommerce compete with the traditional grocery stores; Google/Alphabet is already in multiple traditional businesses.

Speed is key to thriving in the post-pandemic era

Digital-native firms have the foundation to turn on a dime and respond to consumer needs very fast. They can scale for higher traffic, offer new services, have AI tools to guide end-users, leverage data to its fullest extent, and do this quicker and cheaper. On the other hand,?'digital?migrant'?firms need to invest in their underlying workflows and the supporting infrastructure to compete and be agile to respond. DevOps, Agile, Cloud adoption, Low/No-code, and workflow automation are a few practices and tools to lay this foundation.

Digital-migrant firms must evolve to support expeditious?changes

The nature of digital transformation has changed from "do your manual things faster" to focusing on the end-user experience. The pandemic forced the end-users to change. Older users who never used apps for banking or grocery shopping had to use them. Students and teachers across the globe realized the power of zoom and YouTube lectures. TelaDoc and similar online doctor visits have grown exponentially. Business users buying services or products online also moved overnight to an online-only environment. These forced changes in consumer behavior are?here to stay. Consumer expectations from digital experiences are set high from their experiences with the digital native firms like Google, Amazon, Netflix or Facebook. Firms need to compete with players whom they haven't even thought of yet. Every firm moving towards digital transformation has to offer a seamless digital presence to match these anticipations.

Fail fast and scale fast

Apart from setting the foundation, the digital migrants need to keep re-assessing the consumer needs to respond to them and maneuver their strategy. For example, Kroger realized e-commerce to be their gateway to enter new states more profitably by?opening?robot-powered warehouses?and not a single grocery store. This is their blueprint to compete with Amazon, Walmart, and the regional stores. Every firm transaction should be viewed whether it facilitates the transformation or transition to the new consumer needs or not. Firms need to develop an agile culture with an affinity to changes.

Consumer data and Design thinking should guide strategy

Another step is an intense focus on modern solutions and trying out new innovating offerings based on data findings even if they cannibalize parts of the existing business. Harmonizing the digital operating model, predictive analytics, and microservices architecture brings forth a glue required for this nimble setup. Digitally mature organizations have AI solutions and design thinking embedded in their organizations. Thus offerings to consumers can be?hyper-personalized?like Amazon and Netflix.

?Hyper-personalized offerings will distinguish the market leaders

Dinosaurs went extinct with an asteroid, COVID-19 has the same effect on bigger businesses. Evolve into agile birds or go extinct!

The opinions expressed here belong solely to myself, and do not reflect the views of my employer.