If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that flexibility is a key attribute of good business. In a survey of business leaders by BT Wholesale and Cisco, respondents ranked agility, flexibility and customer experience as critical to future business success.
That’s easy to understand. Flexibility was key during the early weeks of the pandemic when many businesses had to transition to remote working almost overnight. Now, businesses must ensure ongoing flexibility by allowing staff to work in a more hybrid fashion.
So, what does hybrid working actually mean? Well, as we’ve seen, it’s the ability to allow staff to work effectively from anywhere. It’s also about being flexible and able to adapt quickly to changing customer expectations, whether that means beefing up e-commerce capacity or adopting an omnichannel approach to customer service.
And when opportunities arise, flexible businesses can exploit them by scaling quickly and adding new seats and services as soon as they’re needed.
Digital transformation is about flexibility
This all points to the fact that flexibility is a product of digitalisation. When you need to equip remote workers with the tools they need to do their jobs productively, you adopt cloud-based communications and collaboration services. When customers can’t reach you physically, you turn to digital commerce and contact centres.
Digital businesses are resilient businesses because flexibility allows you to bend with the wind. In the BT Wholesale/Cisco survey, 82% of respondents agreed that digital transformation made businesses less vulnerable to the economic impacts of the pandemic.
Flexible businesses also tend to adopt new technological solutions sooner. That will be essential in the next months and years as the effects of the pandemic force organisations to become leaner, more nimble, and the PSTN switch off fast approaches.
In 2025, the PSTN switch off will end the era of traditional landline telephony. The sooner businesses switch to all-IP alternatives, the sooner they will benefit from more flexible, feature-rich communications.
