Without a doubt, one of the greatest tools to build business resilience and help your business thrive through periods of change that are outside of your control is the development of your organisational capability.
What is organisational capability?
In short, it can be described as the combination of your people (their skills, know-how, knowledge, attitudes, values and time), your physical resources (equipment, fiscal position, inventory etc) and a range of intangible factors such as organisational structure, culture and history that combine to deliver your product/services. At any time, an organisation and business will have a collection of the above resources/factors that are within their control. From a sole trader providing basic labouring services, through to an advanced manufacturing organisation – all businesses have a combination of these factors that allows them to function.
How do we develop our organisational capability?
Some businesses do this intuitively on-the-go, some businesses do this in a measured and strategic approach, and some businesses fail to develop their capability. The latter often fail when change or competition comes. Intentional activity that stems from strategic planning is the best way to develop your organisational capability. It might be that to compete in a different market, or operate more efficiently and profitably, your business needs to change and adapt. Developing organisational capability might look like some of the following activities:
Functional or competence-based training for staff through accredited or vocational training
Investment in new equipment or technology by purchasing plant, software or machines
Development of new internal processes and procedures through internal review applying LEAN management techniques
A shift in company culture through culture development activities and the implementation of values-based recruiting
Whatever the development, it will usually combine several core attributes that contribute to what your business does and how it does it.
Why develop organisational capability?
Resilient businesses identify opportunities for change, improvement and market advantage; often well before they occur. Other times, these changes are thrust upon a business by external forces. Intentionally developing your organisational capability helps you to prepare for these changes and succeed through them.
A perfect example is the changes that COVID19 restrictions forced upon our world. The pandemic was enormously disruptive to normal businesses; particularly to food and hospitality organisations. Some organisations quickly went about building their capability to deliver services to customers in a socially distant world by implementing things like take-away, door-dash and similar services. This would have required investment into staff training, new technologies and the development of new processes - all drivers of organisational capability.
The businesses that made this pivot and developed their organisation were able to survive and thrive. Businesses that didn’t change could not trade effectively and many had to close their doors. So why should you develop your organisational capability? To survive and thrive in an ever-changing world.
The Challenge
How do you need to develop your organisational capability to respond to current external influences such as Artificial Intelligence or difficult economic circumstances from high interest rates?
Comments