When Change is the Only Constant: Business Agility and the Value of the TMS
When the ground is constantly shifting beneath our feet, should we look for a safe place to stand, or focus on being fast on our feet?
At XTM LIVE 2022 Yuka Kurihara of Scaled Agile made a persuasive case for option B.
Yuka also asked an audience of localization technology leaders an important question:
Are you equipped to compete and thrive in the digital age by responding swiftly to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative, digitally-enabled business solutions?
The 2020s have put many business models to the test. Anyone who wasn’t already aware of the need to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances received a wake-up call with the spread of COVID-19.
Clients and partners of Scaled Agile were given a head-start courtesy of SAFe, the agile framework that supports business development and quality management at enterprise level. As Yuka pointed out, some of the most robust and long-standing brand names are also among the most agile. Customers and followers of Porsche can expect to see more meaningful changes in product development over the next five years than they have in the previous fifty. Employees are tasked not only with accepting change but with embracing it.
Established in 1931, Porsche will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary as an automotive manufacturer. With the autonomous vehicle revolution gathering pace, by 2031 a majority of Porsche customers may no longer be driving their own cars. By following the principles of business agility, leaders in automotive manufacturing will ride the wave of change instead of gasping for air underneath it.
At XTM LIVE 2022 Yuka made it clear that applying similarly flexible thinking to global communication could only be achieved with the support of a Translation Management System. A platform that delivers flexibility, scalability, centralization of assets, connectivity with a range of best in class technologies and vendor inclusivity that offers the user choice and control. The doors this opens aren’t just optional extras. In a decade that has market after market in a state of flux, Yuka believes the agility offered by a next generation Translation Management System is essential. In Yuka’s own words:
“We never know what life will throw at us. We never know when we may have to scale delivery volumes up or down, or which languages or content types we may have to work in. In these circumstances there is no safe place to hide, no safe ground to stand on. We have to be ready to adapt and future-proof our communication and our businesses. Without agility, there is no long-term stability.”
Thank you Yuka for being such a good friend to XTM and for the insights that helped to make XTM LIVE 2022 such a valuable business forum. We agree that, in the 2020s, change is the only constant, but there’s one thing we don’t want to change for XTM LIVE 2023. We definitely want you to come back.