Elevating digital agility: How marketing should leverage on the growing relationship with technology & IT services

The marketing field evolves constantly, and changes happen so fast. Part of the reason is the advancement of technology as well because we have more means to achieve our goals easier. There are many benefits of leveraging new technology and IT services when it comes to marketing activities. Transforming your business will help you create better value for your users and improve how you do things. A way to do it is to take advantage of something called digital agility. Keep reading to learn what exactly stands behind this term and how you should incorporate it into your business.

What is digital agility?

Simply put, digital agility is a term that describes if your organization can rapidly enable, update and change its processes. If you can adapt fast to the use of new technologies and implement changes in your established procedures, this would mean that you have a high digital agility level in your company. No matter if it is simply incorporating a new tool into your day-to-day work or completely changing the way things are done. If you find the right way to implement changes, it would mean that you can improve faster. 

A big part of digital agility is exactly the tools you are using. If you want to be flexible and adapt quickly to the dynamic environment, your tools should allow you to do so and support you along the way. Using the right software will enable you and your employees to rework processes with ease and quickly implement the needed changes.

Why is digital agility necessary?

Something like the COVID-19 pandemic that is entirely out of our control changed our ways of working so much. We could no longer go to the office every day and work next to our coworkers. It was seamless to just walk to someone else’s desk and discuss a topic. Collaboration was effortless, and we didn’t need so many tools to use. Sometimes we could have skipped some steps in the process because we can just discuss a topic with our manager, and it got approved immediately. But now, when we couldn’t do that, we needed to introduce many tools in our day-to-day work and strictly follow all processes. 

When the pandemic happened, we saw how hard it is sometimes to follow all the steps in an established process and how time-consuming it is. Or that we are missing tools that can make our job and collaboration much more effortless. This showed that many businesses neglected flexibility and agility. They couldn’t rapidly adapt to the new situation, and it took them quite some time to become fully operational again.

Digital agility was the method that saved many companies. It provided them with the ability to quickly adapt and develop new systems, processes, procedures, and workflows. If a business is open to changes, this gives the employees the feeling that they can suggest improvements and maybe increase their team’s productivity. Usually, this is how some fantastic ideas are born – new software to be used, a process to be optimized, and more. And if a company sees something is working thanks to digital agility techniques, it can be easily implemented across departments. 

How technology and digital agility can help marketing?

As marketers, we know that our job is not easy, even without considering some tedious processes or complicated tools we use. But when we work in an environment that is not suitable for changes and need to move mountains to get approval for something or follow thousands of steps in a process, we understand how important flexibility and adaptability are. 

Adopting new tools, techniques, and processes can make our work much easier. This is why digital agility is a technique many marketing teams adopt to improve their workflows. Using tools that are easy to use by all employees will save you a lot of time and effort. Many processes can be automated and avoid asking different people along the line to do different tasks to achieve the end goal. 

Thanks to many tools and technological advancements, marketing activities can be made easier. Employees will have more control over their work and will be more efficient. Removing complications when you need to start new marketing activities or optimize current ones will benefit your team and company. Those limitations can often be caused because you need IT to assist you or don’t have the right tools to do your job. Digital agility is exactly the way to go. 

By using the techniques of digital agility, you will be able to optimize your processes by adopting new tools or workflows constantly. After all, it is like marketing people, and IT people speak completely different languages. The right tools will reduce your need for IT to help with technical interventions and save you a lot of time. 

How to start with digital agility?

It is not that hard to start with digital agility, but you should be willing to change. You will have to be open to adopting new processes and using new tools that, in the beginning, might take some time and not be so comfortable, but it will pay off over time. The only thing you will need to start is to create the right working environment. 

The work environment is crucial when it comes to digital agility. When many changes are happening quickly and simultaneously, presenting them to the company and preparing your employees will be the key to success. Rethinking the traditional chain of command and giving more freedom to each employee might be the perfect start. To be able to do rapid changes, you need to be flexible, and if approvals are required on many levels, this will stand in the way. 

Another aspect is to be sure that you implement scalable tactics and tools. We all hope that our business will grow, so we will have to scale fast. So, when you are getting the software to use or implement a procedure, make sure that you think about this possibility. Imagine that you buy a tool that requires a lot of technical knowledge, but at some point, you might hire someone without a lot of IT skills. In this case either you should try to find another tool that might be a better fit or you might want to prepare a training for the new people. Also, make sure that many people can use the tool simultaneously without overwhelming it. 

If your company had already a high digital and work culture, this will also facilitate the adoption of digital agility. If your employees are already used to rapid change or know that their voice will be heard, this will guarantee you that they will speak up when something can be improved. Hiring the right people, encouraging digital culture, ensuring people are motivated and happy at the workplace, and supporting them, will make them accept digital agility as part of the company’s culture. Even when some changes happen too fast or might be uncomfortable for a bit, they will accept them because they will know it is for the best.

Final thoughts

Digital agility will help you scale, grow and innovate easier. Implementing changes, using new tools, adapting processes are just small parts of digital agility. It is important how you will start using this method in your company and how you will prepare your team. It won’t be easy in the beginning because adapting to rapid change might take some time, but it will be worth it with time.