Software agility for start-ups and businesses is no longer a methodology that was originally drafted back in 2001 by a group of IT enthusiasts named the Agile Software Development Manifesto. The manifesto contained a list of principles to revealed better ways of developing software, while valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Today everyone knows that any successful company needs to be able to adapt quickly to market changes, respond rapidly and flexibly to its customers’ demands and continuously strive for competitive advantage over its competitors. Nineteen years later, Agile is no longer a methodology or a set of tools from a manifesto; it has become a way of running an entire company. Start-ups and businesses since 2001 who developed agile software and processes made well-established companies suffer from their digital disruption, with some even becoming extinct as a result. Some examples are Blockchain, E-books, Uber, VMWare, Square, Netflix, Workday ERP, and Master Card Send.
Agile transformations have today become mainstream in the marketplace. There are companies who have been working on this for several years, others are just getting started. Today technologies such as IoT, drones, artificial intelligence, NoSQL, and big data are changing the landscape. Well-established businesses today who are not adopting an agile transformation specially in software are at risk from a digital disruption from a competitor. B2B competition in the marketplace today is now centrally focused on infrastructure and software processes. The one with the lowest cost of hardware/software maintenance and the best business software processes is the business who will outperform their competitors.
With the technologies that are now available and the ones that are coming out. Well-established businesses can no longer ignore being stagnant with the excuse of not upgrading one’s business processes and software because it just works. A start-up or a medium size business who adopts technologies that enable them to operate at a much lower cost with a purpose of providing better services than their competitors will surely disrupt their business.
