Bend, don’t break:
How wireless
business internet
can help improve
business agility

If the last few years have taught business leaders anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. From pandemic-driven lockdowns and global supply chain interruptions to wars raging on the ground and in cyberspace, world events rarely adhere to a company’s strategic plan for the coming calendar year.

But when a company makes a concerted effort to engineer for resiliency and agility in their business—the two capabilities required to bend under pressure instead of breaking—it can turn a crisis into an opportunity for reinvention. And in doing so, the company can achieve a whole new level of success.

Resiliency and agility in business are not the same thing, but they have much in common: imaginative leadership, empowered employees, and the underlying technology that lets them quickly implement new operating models without sacrificing productivity or customer satisfaction.

To better understand the role that IT plays in nurturing and maintaining resilience and agility in business, it helps to first have a clear definition of the two terms.

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines “resilience” as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” While companies don’t have emotions, they do have people who must succeed in navigating the team through difficult or challenging experiences (like the need to suddenly support hundreds and even thousands of employees working from home during a protracted global health crisis). Companies also have networks and IT applications that are constantly being challenged by cybercriminals who seek to disrupt operations. Engineering networks and applications for resilience must be a strategic initiative if a company wants to thrive.

The Business Agility Institute calls agility “a set of organizational capabilities, behaviors, and ways of working that affords your business the freedom, flexibility, and resilience to achieve its purpose. No matter what the future brings.” McKinsey & Company researchers define “agility” as “the ability to quickly reconfigure strategy, structure, processes, people, and technology toward value-creating and value-protecting opportunities.” The key words here are “capabilities” and “flexibility.” Technologies like wireless business internet, unified communications tools and online collaboration platforms provide the capabilities that make operating flexibility possible. 

During challenging times, employees must be willing and able to adapt to new ways of working. Willingness to adapt is the result of fostering a corporate culture that instills a passionate employee commitment to the company’s vision and mission. The ability to adapt, however, most often relies on technologies that enable new ways of working.

From supporting remote and hybrid working arrangements to standing up a temporary manufacturing facility to compensate for supply chain issues, more companies are discovering that wireless business internet is a perfect example of this type of enabling technology. 

Wireless business internet can quickly and easily turn a home office into an enterprise-grade workspace where employees no longer have to compete with other household members for reliable internet connectivity. Reliable dedicated wireless business internet can also enable more frequent and effective use of online collaboration platforms to keep far-flung employees connected, engaged and productive.

Wireless business internet can be quickly deployed to set up new locations, such as pop-up stores or temporary distribution centers, to adapt to dynamic market conditions and ever-changing customer preferences. “Buy online and pick it up curbside” operating models can also be implemented quickly and easily with wireless business internet. And wireless business internet can keep contact center staff connected to the customer service resources they need even if the contact center itself is temporarily shut down due to disaster or public health concerns. 

Wireless business internet is a proven backup solution for network managers whose companies are concerned about possible interruptions to wired internet connectivity from unexpected cable cuts or disruptive cyberattacks. And when providers embed security controls like data encryption and user authentication into its wireless network, cybersecurity is enhanced.

When it’s offered and supported by a single trusted provider nationwide, wireless business internet may greatly simplify IT and administrative management. For companies that reimburse employees or subsidize home internet connectivity, having one nationwide provider makes billing and budgeting much easier. And having one wireless internet provider for hybrid employees and/or temporary worksites means more consistent visibility and control for IT and security teams.