2023 is predicted to be a very tough year. What do you think will be needed to win and improve?

2023 is predicted to be a very tough year. What do you think will be needed to win and improve?

Businesses will need to be far more astute than they are now.

I work with organizations, year in and year out, who have no idea what their cohesive, corporate strategy is.

• They don’t know what the organizational goals and objectives are.

• They don’t know how the organization intends to achieve those goals and objectives.

• They don’t know what level of quality is required to win in their industry.

• They don’t know what competitive advantage looks like for their product?

• They don’t understand what is needed, in terms of product development, to win.

And so forth.

Addressing those elements is going to make the difference between becoming successful in 2023 versus losing ground, market share, and customer satisfaction in 2023.

Profitability.

There is often a fine line between profitability and loss.

It can be small things that make that difference. If you are operating in competitive markets, you need to be very clear about the things that create competitive advantage and increase customer satisfaction, or you will find yourself losing ground fast.

If you are slow at delivering what customers expect and require, you are going to lose competitive advantage and straddle that fine line between profit and loss.

If you are unable to produce all the features that customers are actively seeking, you are going to lose competitive advantage and market share fast.

Employee Satisfaction

If your organization still embraces toxic practices and behaviours, you are going to lose highly skilled, competent, and capable professionals which further puts your business at risk. It decreases the organization’s ability to effectively respond to disruption and there is a significant drop in the quality of products, features, and services because people are so unhappy in the toxic environment.

You need to focus on employee satisfaction to the same degree that you focus on customer satisfaction. Without great people you aren’t going to create happy, satisfied customers.

They will take their knowledge, skills, and capabilities elsewhere and you will fast find yourself being devoured by the competitors who employ your best people.

Business strategy in recessions.

In times of hardship, the organizations that invest in their people, their ways of working, and their capability development are the ones that are going to be successful.

It’s hard for everyone, yet it presents an opportunity for organizations to identify what isn’t working, what needs to change, and explore how they can increase performance in all areas of the business.

There is a little magic in the urgency a recession creates, and how that inspires organizations to make the changes that will lead to competitive advantage and success. If your ways of working are more effective than your competitors, you will be successful despite a recession.

Explore tools and frameworks that can support your strategy.

Scrum and Kanban are a great example of agile tools and frameworks that you can employ to visually demonstrate the current state of affairs in your product development systems and processes.

It is said that scrum doesn’t solve problems, it highlights them.

Scrum is a great agile framework for navigating uncertainty and complexity, and it is a great way to identify al the systems, processes, and practices that are preventing your organization from achieving operational excellence.

All the things that are preventing the team from innovating effectively and continuously improving in short, rapid product development cycles.

It can be hard to identify what isn’t working, and what needs to be improved, but scrum makes these things very clear within a short space of time. The team simply get going and as they work, the problems and impediments light up like a Christmas tree.

As the team document these issues, great leadership teams invest time, effort, and money into solving those problems and removing impediments, which has an immediate impact on how effectively the team can produce great products and deliver those products to market quicker than competitors.

Great things to invest in throughout 2023

Product Ownership

• This is huge. Having great product ownership knowledge, skills, and capabilities is a game-changer in the world of product development. Most organizations have no idea what a great product backlog should look like, nor do they know how to order and prioritize work items to increase customer satisfaction and achieve competitive advantage in their environments.

Market Analysis

• Knowing what your customers want, need, and will need in the future is incredibly important. Knowing what your competitors are doing, how you compare, and where competitive advantage can be created is incredibly important. Knowing the current status quo and what it will take to win is incredibly important. Most organizations don’t invest enough time in this and the organization that does, inevitably wins because their efforts, time, and money are dedicated to a specific purpose.

Training and Practice

• Things don’t improve on their own, they usually descend into chaos. Invest in the right training for your teams, training that helps them develop valuable skills and improves their way of working. From developers through to leadership teams. Invest in agile training and then invest in practice. Getting the ball rolling by doing work that they have been trained in, and being guided through the process by an experienced agile consultant and coach is going to make a significant difference. If they are practicing during the hard times, they are delivering results and getting better, and when the good times come around they are way ahead of their competitors.

So, for me, these would be the areas that I would advise organizations to focus on if they are to make the most of the 2023 recession, and use that as a launchpad to future success in the markets they serve.

About NKD Agility

Naked Agility is an #agile consultancy that specializes in #scrumtraining, #agilecoaching and #agileconsulting to help teams evolve, integrate, and continuously improve.

We recognize the positive impact that a happy AND inspired workforce can have on customer experience, and we actively help organizations to tap into the power of creative, collaborative, and high-performing teams that is unique to #agile and #scrum environments.

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