Why SMEs are better placed than the “big four” to leverage new technology

When ANZ is saying it wants an “agile” workforce and Westpac is dubbing itself a “200-year-old start-up,” the time where you can get away without behaving like a tech company is officially over. But small businesses are far better placed to benefit from tech companies than our big four banks when it comes to leveraging new technology. Here’s how and why.

In my company, we run standups (that is cool speak for a quick daily meeting while standing up to make sure no one is too comfortable to drag the meeting out) using the Kanban methodology to plan and adjust work or tasks on a micro-level. Atlassian is famous for using the technique.

We adjust the priorities on a daily basis, noting all ideas and prioritising to deliver based on just-in-time methodology. If we have a customer that needs a feature in the next few days, we push that work to the top of the list while others drop down on the list.

It’s a great way of marrying our promises to customers with our future big ideas against the team’s capacity, which means we can all see the big goals and understand why we only work on what is required here and now.

The benefits for the customer become all the more apparent as our product offer changes with technology. What worked yesterday will need revising today, and developing tomorrow. The rate of change is increasing.

We don’t run the risk of an employee continuing a task because they never felt empowered to say, “There are more important things I could be doing.” The more important things and the overarching goals are agreed upon everyday and the system is geared to respond to changes in priorities.

If a chronic problem develops, the team both becomes aware of it faster and can come up with a lasting solution more quickly.

The process also tends to speed up the pace at which new employees get a handle on how the business runs, and should run. New hires can see what’s important and not important being pushed up and down the daily list with the input of everyone.

There are some more involved agile workplace systems that have met with mixed results. Holacracy is like “Kanban” on steroids and it has caused all manner of problems for online fashion retailer Zappos, while publishing platform Medium dumped the idea about a year ago.

But being more agile carries so many obvious benefits when you compare it to the traditional corporate chain of command the banks are trying to shed.

If an employee has a problem they can’t solve within their department, it’s elevated to their manager. That manager then speaks to the relevant manager in another division about the problem, who often then has to reach up or down the chain of command to find a resolution. This is then relayed back to the employee, sometimes via the same pathway.

This is in part a function of size, big organisations are never going to be as nimble as smaller ones and they should forget trying to be.

But if they want to be more like a small tech company they’ve got to open up their decision-making process from top to bottom, and I suspect that’s not going to happen.

It must be noticed that ANZ’s C-level management isn’t changing along the “agile” workforce lines. I suspect the next level down of management won’t do so either.

Companies reflect their management. If small businesses want the benefits of an agile workforce, they’ve got to have the courage to empower their employees with the knowledge to fulfill their goals.

Michael Jankie, Co-Founder, PoweredLocal