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Getting business up to speed with a changing market


Johannesburg, 04 May 2020
Brian Blignaut, South African business unit lead of international consultancy Equal Experts.
Brian Blignaut, South African business unit lead of international consultancy Equal Experts.

In uncertain times and a rapidly changing environment, time to market is key to success as businesses pivot to stay relevant.

This is according to Brian Blignaut, South African business unit lead of international consultancy Equal Experts, whose software development experts and consultants have built their international success on their agility and speed.

“Where projects were once rolled out in months and years, businesses must now release products and features in a matter of days or weeks. This is a trend that was developing pre-COVID-19, but the ability to pivot – and do so quickly – has become more important than ever before,” he says. “Those with speed in their DNA will be able to capitalise on the current situation and capture market share.”

For example, Blignaut points to businesses that once relied on face-to-face interactions having to move quickly to digital engagement, and brick-and-mortar businesses having to go online virtually overnight. Those who were able to move quickly have a much better chance of survival now, he says.

However, the ability to move quickly and pivot the business at speed depends on certain factors – company culture, inbuilt automation and underlying quality built into systems.

Company culture is arguably the most important factor, as businesses can implement automation and improve systems, but without the right culture in place, the ability to pivot at speed will still be hampered.

“An agile culture, in which people are not afraid to try, test assumptions, fail and start again, starts from the top. To pivot and go to market at speed, organisations need to become tolerant of failure, learning from experiments and moving on,” he says.

“Equal Experts’ core values are around building quality systems with a heavy focus on automation, and applying iterative development models, which allows us to help our customers take products to market quickly and sustainably, testing assumptions at every step.”

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