In a rapidly changing market, what can businesses do to upgrade their adaptability from Flexibility to Agility?

The “punch” of Covid-19 has forced businesses to view adaptability (flexibility) as a survival skill to cope with all societal fluctuations, but it is Agility that is the adaptive capacity helping leaders “get ahead of the curve” on their digital transformation journey.

Covid-19, or pandemics in general, are not new issues. They are merely concrete examples of volatility, differing only in degree or scale. Therefore, businesses face a certain risk of failure if they lack appropriate adaptive capacity (Flexibility).

Recently, the concepts of Flexibility and Agility have been analyzed and viewed by businesses from multiple perspectives. In reality, many businesses still misunderstand or confuse “adaptability” (Flexibility) with “agile adaptive capacity” (Agility).

Specifically, Flexibility in business is often understood as the ability to act in response to or adapt to “events, incidents, or changes”—usually negative, pre-existing, or already occurred—which implies a reactive stance.

Meanwhile, Agility emphasizes flexibility from a proactive stance, focusing on “getting ahead of the curve” to embrace new trends and tendencies, which are generally positive changes.

Agility emphasizes proactive flexibility, especially the ability to seize new opportunities in the digital age. (Photo: Internet)

Speaking at the “Agility in the Digital Age” seminar organized by Dale Carnegie Vietnam, Mr. Duong Phu Nam – General Director of SunWorld Holding (a member of Sun Group) – shared that if businesses do not anticipate and adapt to market changes, they will certainly fall behind competitors, lacking proactivity and failing to adapt in time. The consequence is an inability to reach customers and a loss of control.

“If you can’t lead the market, then move with the market, but don’t fall behind it,” Mr. Nam emphasized.

Also at this seminar, keynote speaker Ms. Nguyen Trinh Khanh Linh – Chairwoman and CEO of Dale Carnegie Vietnam, a strategy consultant and practical advisor on business administration, corporate culture, and the training & development of core competencies for managers and leaders, pointed out and analyzed 5 core foundations for businesses to adapt with agility and maintain a competitive edge in the digital age.

These foundations include: (1) The organization’s purpose/mission, (2) Resilience, (3) Social intelligence, (4) Tools and processes, and (5) Capacity to act.

These foundations can be likened to “proactive weapons” that may seem like common knowledge, but putting them into practice requires effort from all sides.

Sharing this view, Mr. Le Viet Thang, Founder & CEO of the all-in-one business management platform 1Office, believes this is similar to the digital transformation journey.

“First of all, it must be affirmed that: Information technology does not create new problems, but rather finds ways to solve them with more optimal solutions. For example, logistics emerged to make transporting goods easier. But logistics itself did not create the act of transporting goods. This is similar to how information technology helps businesses solve problems. But without the help of technology, those problems still exist. In other words, the race to find a more optimal solution is in itself a challenging journey,” Mr. Thang shared.

Mr. Le Viet Thang, Founder & CEO of the all-in-one business management platform 1Office.

Of the 5 foundations Ms. Linh mentioned above, only one is systemic—tools and processes—while the rest depend entirely on the mindset of the business, its leaders, and specifically, its people.

Recently, 1Office officially launched the 1Office CEO version in two major cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, attracting great interest from hundreds of businesses, primarily C-level executives including CEOs and senior managers.

Surprisingly, however, even though this all-in-one business management platform has solved many bottlenecks for businesses regarding tools and processes, Mr. Thang asserted: “People are the center of internal digital transformation.”

Mr. Le Viet Thang, Founder & CEO of the all-in-one business management platform 1Office, believes: “People are the center of internal digital transformation.”

The event was primarily moderated by Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam – former CEO of FPT, and Mr. Le Viet Thang – Founder & CEO of 1Office, alongside discussions and sharing from speakers, reputable experts, and business leaders from various fields who attended the event.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam – former CEO of FPT, is one of the founders of FPT Corporation. During his twenty years with FPT, he held many important positions. At the age of 50, he left his position as FPT CEO and initiated the first online university project in Vietnam.

Mr. Le Viet Thang is the founder & CEO of 1Office – an all-in-one management platform that is gradually realizing the dream of providing a high-quality, “make in Vietnam” comprehensive management solution to serve the needs of thousands of businesses.

1Office officially launched the 1Office CEO version in two major cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, attracting great interest from hundreds of businesses, primarily C-level executives including CEOs and senior managers.

In response to the essential need for digital transformation among Vietnamese businesses today, 1Office was created to leverage the full power of artificial intelligence to help automate business management.

In addition to having all the features of the previous version, 1Office CEO also boasts 2 new upgrades. Specifically: The BI (Business Intelligence) smart reporting system: A comprehensive, accurate, and intuitive metric that helps CEOs get a 360-degree view of their business’s health; The Knowhow Cloud sample data system: A massive data repository of business secrets for all sectors, compiled from the implementation process for thousands of businesses with the joint contribution of over 30 business management consulting experts.

Through the Knowhow Cloud platform, Mr. Thang expresses his desire to bring customers valuable secrets from every industry, rather than just providing a simple software solution.

In the digital transformation journey, businesses can hardly ignore inevitable trends like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. (Photo: Internet)

1Office not only provides a management software solution but also an entire online working environment by digitizing the whole enterprise and turning it into a unified entity encompassing HR, customers, sales, communications, and more. As a result, the trend of remote work (Work from Home) becomes easier for businesses, especially in the context of a pandemic.

From Ms. Linh’s perspective as a strategic business consultant or Mr. Thang’s role as the provider of a total management platform for businesses, “customer-centric” has always been the top-priority strategy.

According to a global Dale Carnegie study that deeply analyzed companies with successful cultures (culture champions), the importance of a customer-centric strategy in a company’s development was confirmed. What sets the senior leaders of these companies apart from the rest is their emphasis on the importance of the customer.

As for Mr. Thang, he believes that without customers and their real-world experiences, the product cannot be perfected. To develop the versions of 1Office and 1Office CEO, the company had to study nearly 1000 businesses.

Through the sales process, we learned about and generalized the common problems businesses face. It can be said that the first customers, such as Canifa, Phong Vu, Hoa Phat, etc., made a significant contribution to the growth of 1Office today, Mr. Thang affirmed.

Source: http://cafebiz.vn