Competitiveness Now Rests on Constant Adjustment

We’re entering a phase in the history of business where nimbleness is now more than half the battle.

Developing great products, delivering good customer service, securing right supply chain and discovering new market opportunities still matter, and they always will be important. The ability for a business to seize the moment and make rapid adjustment is now just as critical, however. Slowness means lost opportunity.

At first, being nimble to the point of making daily adjustments was primarily the domain of Silicon Valley startups. As businesses of all types start to embrace what tech startups have known for a long time, however, being nimble has moved from a competitive advantage to a necessity. Flexibility now is a requirement.

Cloud services are helping businesses of all sizes become more nimble. Take the virtual PBX, for instance.

Until a few years ago, adjusting business phone systems was a laborious task that involved capital expense, planning and deployment time. When a business needed to scale its phone system fast, it usually meant a new PBX system or an upgrade to the phone system hardware at minimum.

With virtual PBX systems such as Nextiva, however, adding more phone lines is as simple as purchasing a larger virtual PBX package. Because the PBX hardware is hosted by Nextiva, and software is built to scale, literally within minutes a business can double its business phone system if needed.

Businesses also can scale down with a virtual PBX system, which is an important part of being nimble. With a traditional on-premise PBX system, an investment must be made and shrinking usage mostly amounts to less resource utilization. But with a virtual PBX, businesses can adjust their phone allocation to whatever needs they have at the moment.

This nimbleness enables businesses to better take advantage of seasonal variation, especially when combined with the growing contractor economy where workers also can be picked up as needed.

The nimbleness of virtual PBX systems also allow businesses to hire workers wherever they are located, and bring aboard employees on a project-basis without having to worry about the hassle of integrating these employees with company systems.

Cloud-based phone systems are just one example; this flexibility inherent in cloud services also extends to most other areas of business today.

When taken together, these cloud services help firms achieve the nimbleness that business now demands. There are many reasons why businesses are embracing the cloud—but the flexibility to adjust on a moment’s notice certainly is one of the better reasons.

Edited by Maurice Nagle