o you wish your team could be more nimble? In the last month, three enterprise-level companies told me they want to be more nimble. But what does that really mean?

It boils down to agility: moving fast and efficiently yet always flexible enough to adjust as needed. It's cutting through red tape and removing what's unnecessarily time-consuming, streamlining processes, and enabling teams to concentrate on what matters most. For a big organization, this can be a game-changer—but easier said than done. Watch this content here.

Common Challenges to Nimbleness

Large organizations face a multitude of barriers to nimbleness that feel insurmountable. Let's look at three real-world instances that demonstrate what many businesses are up against:

1. Lack of a unified playbook.

One leader stated that their organization does not have a consistent playbook for coordinated campaign delivery across shopper marketing and brand teams. Each brand runs separately, resulting in inconsistencies, delays, and inefficiencies. For example, a brand could use a legacy system to handle its marketing assets. Another brand may use an entirely different procedure or tool.

This makes it difficult to align, hence leading to duplication of efforts, miscommunication, and missed opportunities. Instead of capitalizing on success, teams will waste time inventing the wheel with every new project.

2. Unsustainable Non-Working Costs

Another executive said their non-working costs and money spent on processes rather than media or campaigns are unsustainable. High-production agencies are too slow and expensive to meet today's rapid demands. For example, a campaign that takes six weeks to plan and execute often misses the window for relevance in a fast-moving market. These long processes do not help to change the course of actions if consumer behavior or competitive moves change in the market. It puts the company at a disadvantage.

3. Tedious and Laborious Campaign Launch

One company disclosed that it can take up to 12 weeks to launch an influencer campaign. The process is manual, slow, and filled with inefficiencies such as back-and-forth email approvals and disconnected tools to track progress. For example, one team could handle the influencer contracts in a spreadsheet, whereas another could handle content approvals by email threads. So, when the campaigns launched, market trends may have changed, making them less effective, while their competition was ahead of the curve.

These are all too familiar in large organizations. Teams function in silos, workflows repeat themselves, and alignment across departments is weak. For forward-thinking professionals within those organizations, these inefficiencies can be maddeningly frustrating. They see room for improvement but lack the necessary buy-in from stakeholders to drive meaningful change.

Being agile is not a corner or the sacrifice of quality. It's a harmonized way of working that does away with non-value-added layers, accelerates decision-making, and reduces costs.

Here is what nimbleness might look like in action:

Standardization: Think of a global organization where all marketing teams use one single playbook. That playbook clearly defines roles, processes, and best practices, which means consistency across markets. For instance, the same template for campaign briefs can be used by all teams, making collaboration smoother and saving time spent reinventing documents.

Tech-Enabled Partnerships: Imagine a company using the most advanced project management tool that serves as an integration hub between Slack, Adobe, and other types of CRM systems. This platform automatically frees up employees from doing repetitive tasks like approval assignments and timeline updates.

These changes liberate teams to concentrate on strategic efforts rather than getting stuck in operational bottlenecks. A nimble organization can respond rapidly to market demands, delivering campaigns faster and with greater impact.

How to Drive Change

Changing your team's way of working isn't impossible, but it does require deliberate action. Here are a few key steps to get started:

1. Stay on Top of Innovation

Getting information about the new tools, strategies, and partnerships that can ease your workflows is the first step to being nimble. Attend conferences and industry events in order to catch emerging trends and technologies.

A marketing team can learn about the AI-powered tool that can scan consumer data to create campaign ideas, cutting the time from weeks down to days in terms of planning.

Question to ask for innovation:

- How will this tool solve our immediate pain points?

- Can it be integrated with our current systems?

- What kind of ROI can be expected in the first year?

2. Start Small

Taking a "test-and-learn" approach to change can make the process less intimidating. Start small: pilot something new process or partnership. If launch campaigns are taking too long, for example, try working with a tech-enabled agency that can deliver quick turnaround influencer campaigns. Set concrete metrics of success, like decreasing campaign launch times by 50% or costs by 20%.

Use a successful pilot as a proof point to get other stakeholders on board. Use quantifiable outcomes such as increased efficiency or cost savings to create the momentum needed to scale change more broadly.

3. Encourage a Culture of Agility

It's not just the tools and the processes; being agile is a mindset. Get that mindset out in your team: be adaptable, take well-calculated risks, and don't be afraid of failure. For example, create an organization where employees are encouraged to think of new ideas and test new ways of doing things without risking reprisal.

Why Being Nimble is Important to Compete with Challenger Brands

In this fast-paced market, challenger brands, usually the smaller and agile competitors, disrupt the established players by innovating faster, engaging audiences authentically, and responding quicker to trends. Therefore, traditional and larger brands have to be nimble across all their operations and marketing strategies to be able to compete effectively.

Challenger brands are winning because:

They Act Fast: They see new trends and pounce on them before others.

Authenticity: They have fresh messaging that is honest and directly engaging with consumers. This resonates well with consumers, especially young people who find transparency important.

Technology Adoption: They embrace newer platforms and tools early, ranging from TikTok to AI-empowered customer interactions.

Audience Focus: They target specific underserved audiences with precision to create loyal followings.

For example, DTC brands like Dollar Shave Club and Warby Parker disrupted their own industries by focusing on convenience, competitive pricing, and a relationship directly with consumers, which had legacy players revisiting their strategies.

Conclusion

It is not about being efficient; it is about equipping your team to succeed in the fast-paced market of today. It is through nimbleness that organizations respond to market demand quickly, grasp opportunities, and achieve sustained growth. Even the largest organizations can become more agile with the right combination of standardization, technology, and willingness to test and learn. It is a commitment that is worth it because the outcome is a faster, smarter, and more impactful team.

If you are facing similar challenges and want to explore what nimbleness could look like for your brand—whether in omnichannel, media, or shopper marketing efforts—let's connect. Together, we can create a roadmap to help your team move faster, smarter, and with greater impact.

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