Does it seem like the market has thrown you curveball after curveball the past few years? It’s been hard, especially for small businesses, as your agility was put to the test. Technologies that support flexibility help you navigate a future full of unknowns, so you can more easily handle whatever comes next.
What Is Business Agility?
Market changes happen fast, and if you don’t react quickly, it’s easy to fall behind. Business agility helps you pivot, correct course, and get moving in the right direction. And with the right technology, you can support these changes while keeping workers productive—both at the office and on the go.
Why Is Business Agility Important?
Some things in business, such as your overhead costs or projected revenue, are predictable. But other variables you’ll never see coming—like a pandemic. Business agility is important because it helps you respond to what you can’t possibly predict. Here are a few reasons why agility is critical to help you pivot and/or scale:
The Pandemic Accelerated Digital Transformation
A recent survey found the pandemic sped up digital transformation by several years.3 And for small businesses that meant rethinking business processes on the fly and making changes fast. Business agility is a tool that helps you keep up.
An Increasing Number of Employees Work Remotely
With the hyper-acceleration of digital transformation, more employees work on the go. And these employees aren’t in a hurry to get back to in-person work. Sixty-four percent say they’re willing to quit their job if asked to return to the office full time.4 Staying agile requires technologies and tools that support them.
Customers Expect More from Businesses
Customer expectations changed quickly during the pandemic. As these demands increased, so did your need for tools that supported faster responses. Technologies built with agility in mind help you stay ahead of demands in order to maintain your competitive advantage.
Benefits of Leveraging Technology to Improve Business Agility
When you don’t know what changes are coming next, you need to be ready for anything. Using technology that supports flexibility helps you pivot faster and adapt more easily to change. Here are a few benefits of using technology to level up your agility:
Improves Productivity
Your employees work hard, but working hard isn’t enough when productivity killers, like slow computers and inadequate collaboration tools, hold them back. Updating technology helps employees do their best work, with faster computers and improved connectivity that speeds up rather than slows down productivity.
Supports Employee Engagement
You probably already know that some of your best ideas come from your employees. And it’s these ideas that fuel the transformation needed to stay ahead of competitors. Technology that supports agility helps your employees collaborate more easily, connect with their co-workers and generate ideas that help your business pivot faster.
Encourages Greater Performance
Even your most productive employees can only do so much if technology is holding them back. Updating your tech helps your teams work at maximum performance by avoiding hiccups that come with outdated systems and software. When your employees have tools that support how and where they work, they’re better equipped to handle changes quickly and effectively.
Helps Support Stronger Security
As many small businesses transitioned to remote work, cybercriminals designed new ways to target the technology that supported them. Updating your technology helps you leverage tools that can keep you both more agile and better secured. And when you have fewer security gaps, employees can work more smoothly without unexpected interruptions.
Small Business Technologies That Support Agility
You know it’s time to update your technology, but where do you start? Technology that is built with agility and security at the forefront helps support greater flexibility, so you can handle whatever market shifts come your way.
Business-Class PCs
Small businesses know that wasted time is wasted money, and computers built with faster processors help you recapture those losses. Business-class PCs empower your employees with high-performing technology, so they can get the work done faster.
When shopping for new small business PCs, look for business-class devices with Intel vPro® Essentials to speed up productivity, improve reliability, and support the agility of your growing small business.
Cybersecurity Technologies That Support Remote Work
Remote work brought new vulnerabilities to your doorstep. For example, during 2019, 66% of small and medium-sized businesses were hit with a cyberattack, and during 2021, cyberattacks on businesses per week increased by 50%.5
Investing in PCs built with Intel vPro® Essentials helps give employees fast, reliable, and secure work experiences – so your teams stay productive, and your data is more protected.
Devices with Improved Connectivity
Connectivity became even more important in the past few years with so many workers on the go. Whether you’re hosting a video meeting, using collaboration tools, or sharing files, your productivity is rooted in how well you connect.
The Intel vPro® platform comes with Intel® Wi-Fi 6/6E (Gig+), which is built with Wi-Fi technologies for videoconferencing in a business environment, supporting faster remote connectivity.
Remote Desktop Management
Remote monitoring and management helps you manage devices whether your workers are on the go or in the office. You can more proactively monitor endpoints, networks, and computers to help reduce security risks. Remote IT access also means you can handle tasks like installing security patches and updates faster, reducing downtime that may interfere with your employees’ ability to get their work done.
Business Agility and Security
Staying agile is difficult when security vulnerabilities threaten to hold you back. Reducing vulnerabilities helps to lower the risk of unexpected events, so you can focus on being more proactive and flexible. As you look for tools that support agility and security, consider:
Multifactor Authentication
Multifactor authentication challenges your employees to prove who they are before gaining access to your systems. It requires a second and sometimes even a third test for users, helping keep criminals out. And these tests are important since many security breaches are directly traced back to stolen credentials.
Endpoint Security
Do your employees use laptops, desktops, or other devices to connect to your network? Each device that connects to your network is a potential doorway into your systems. Endpoint security is focused on strategies and technologies that help lock up endpoints to keep criminals out.
Mobile Device Management
With mobile device management, you can tighten security controls while still allowing workers the freedom to work how, when, and where they want. Tools such as Intel vPro that support security and collaboration give you remote management capabilities so you can support workers and do so securely.
Supporting Agility with Intel
The only thing certain about the future is that it’s in constant motion. And keeping up with these ongoing shifts requires tools that help you make changes quickly. Business grade devices with Intel vPro® Essentials can help you pivot faster, scale more easily, and capture more opportunities.
And whether you choose desktops or laptops, Intel vPro® Essentials will give you the out-of-the-box security and collaboration features that you need to support your employees on the go and in the office.