The need for speed: Big business and the race to keep up

The modern day is defined by speed – and this presents both a challenge and an opportunity for big businesses. Consumers armed with smartphones are able to shop, bank and play in an instant, wherever and whenever they want. People have come to expect a 24/7 service – and retail giants such as Amazon even promise to deliver goods to customers in some cities within two hours of placing an order.

There’s an opportunity, therefore, for businesses to come up with ever-quicker ways of operating and this alone will make them stand out from the crowd. The challenge, however, is how to get faster in a way that is profitable and doesn’t compromise on the quality of your work.

So, how do they do it?

No compromise

Working faster for the sake of working faster is no good. Speed and quality should not be mutually exclusive and there can be no compromise here. Companies that can find ways to work quickly and to the right standard will have cracked the right formula. Companies might even want to devise products and services that allow companies to do this. So a commercial printing machine that combines the strengths of offset and digital printing could be transformative, for example.

Analytics

Technology and speed go hand in hand but so too does technology and data. Big businesses can harvest vast swathes of data on their customers and perform real-time analysis of what does and doesn’t work. That means they’re able to spot a surge in demand and divert resources to this much quicker than ever before. That’s true for B2B suppliers right through to supermarkets catering for the tastes of customers prompting by fad diets or even the changing weather.

Logistics

Hand in hand with this process comes logistics. It’s no good spotting a spike in demand if you’re not agile enough to be able to cater for this. Big businesses have complex logistics chains, using road, rail, air and sea wherever necessary. The development of sat-nav systems that are tailored to those in logistics has helped make this process more fine tuned. Companies are able to track and divert their drivers from a headquarters.

Communications

The speed of technology has made communication swifter than ever before. Businesses can now have ‘face-to-face’ meetings with executives half way around the globe without even leaving their office. Not only that but effective communications also allows for ideas to be disseminated to a wide audience as quickly as possible.

Innovation

The need for speed provides an opportunity for innovation. Big businesses should task individuals within their organisation to always strive to review, refine and improve the way they handle everyday tasks. Innovations that save time and or money can even be rewarded – with some companies offering incentives (such as a proportion of the money saved) for people who come up with these.