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Introduction

Companies in practically all sectors are going through a moment of great transition, which is catalyzed by new digital technologies and their impact on organizational structures and the way of generating value (Langley et al., 2020). This metamorphosis, often called digital transformation, can best be defined as a digital journey, since it is a long process with several stages and adaptations, and not a simple sudden and immediate change. Typically, transformations in the digital journey begin when a traditional institution is exposed to new technology that provides, at least initially, a significant productivity change (Denning, 2018). Over time, qualitative changes begin to take shape, and the trend is for a true digital revolution to happen.

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In today’s business models, one of the most important measures is execution time. The speed and precision with which actions are executed must act proportionally in organizations. This evolution has forced the generation of new organizational models. Innovation has become a value that all companies must address in such a way that it becomes another asset (Langley et al., 2020). Among the changes in execution, the Agile management model has emerged, along with others such as the Scrum methodology. In both cases, production knowledge is applied to reduce times and improve performance.

One of the essential advantages of the Agile Marketing methodology is the ability to measure results and, depending on the benefits, to be able to bet on new strategies, invest in new technologies, or carry out small tests to get a better product, which in the end translates into better service and therefore a satisfied customer (Hagen et al., 2019). Agile also offers flexibility in the face of change. The most important feature of this model is that it allows companies to adopt changes effectively and quickly (Olteanu, 2018). This paper explores the implementation of Agile methodology at British Telecom (BT) Group, analyzing the essential experiences that prompted that change and how the model has benefitted the company in achieving its goals. As a technological change, switching from a traditional method to an agile software development method has a significant impact on the entire organization, employees, customers, suppliers, both internal and external.

BT’s Implementation

The British telecommunications giant British Telecom Group has achieved a tremendous competitive advantage in its business development since it began to use agile development methodology for application development in 2005 (Hoffman, 2008). The switch from traditional waterfall development technology to agile development means that business customers can frequently request software features changes during the development cycle rather than waiting until software development is complete. This approach ensures that developers can interact and make changes with customers as the development process continues, allowing them to significantly enhance their ability to control project development and reduce waste.

In 2005, BT started to replace the traditional Unix-based telephone traffic monitoring system with a Web-centric architecture. This measure allowed traffic managers to change switches and other physical equipment more quickly, to deal with changes in the network load while avoiding excessive system load. This development project was completed within the framework of BT’s agile development cycle that took only 90 days. Before BT switched to agile development methods in 2005, it took 3-9 months for third-party developers to correct requirements, with the subsequent development itself taking at least 18 more months to complete (Hoffman, 2008). Agile development enabled the company to manage better coding work, which previously caused a significant delay, reducing the development cycle from 3-9 months to 90 days (Evans, 2006). This means that software developers can significantly speed up the final product delivery by eliminating waste in errors. The core idea of agile development at BT is that it helps software developers code quickly, fully verify the compiled code, fix any problems, and then develop the project according to the client’s needs.

Support Activities

One of the support activities impacted by BT’s implementation of an agile development process is the company’s human resources department. The company’s over 3,000 personnel working in the global development department can operate more closely with end-users and meet their needs (Evans, 2006). To improve developers’ communication skills and deepen their understanding of agile development, British Telecom allows programmers to participate in a series of training courses. Also, BT recruits IT professionals experienced with agile development skills to help guide other developers who are still new to the method of improving productivity and business efficiency.

Another support activity impacted by BT’s implementation of an agile development process is technology development. The traditional waterfall model failed to enable the company’s software developers to develop high-quality products within agreed schedules. The main reason for the problem was system defects in the final product, especially because errors could not be corrected at an early stage. Since the designers must deliver according to the original schedule, many requirements are not met according to the specific customer needs. Because the software design is flawed, the coding is hasty, and the final product is of low quality. Agile development ensures that bad errors are detected and corrected before integrating the software, at which point the basic customer specifications have been met. Therefore, Agile development allows to identify errors in the initial stages and modify them, thereby eliminating waste in a poorly developed software final product (Rasmusson, 2015).

The main advantage of BT’s switch to agile development is that developers can always communicate with customers so that more time can be spent on the development of the required system features instead of adding customer needs to software development like the waterfall development method. The agile development approach requires testing the system with the end-user so that changes can be made to suit the customer’s preferences before completion.

New Insights

From a methodological point of view, Agile companies apply a model that allows organizations to carry out long-term projects but adapt to changes more quickly (Olteanu, 2018). In other words, companies that are considered agile are those that can read potential changes before they occur. In this way, the response is ready before the crisis and, facing the consumer or customer; the work is carried out more efficiently.

This is a very common characteristic in newly created companies that base their activity on technology. Thanks to the limitations of their teams, startups tend to be more flexible organizations, with ease of reaction and adaptation.

Agile’s starting point is labor division into small goals or sprints (Aydin & Yasarol, 2018). Among the best consequences of this methodology is that, from the beginning, a product can be presented to the customer. Thus, updates are made on the fly, responding to needs.
Companies should focus on their customers’ needs and their experience, not so much on the product. This is one of the necessary cultural changes that companies must internalize to work in agile.

Conclusion

Organizations do not change the way they operate instantly; on the contrary, their transformation process takes years and requires resources. Consequently, management must identify a crack in the functioning and drive change from there.

The Agile methodology allows organizations the luxury of not being obliged to foresee all the changes that a client will want to make during the project’s development. These changes can be corrected at the moment, which is much more complicated to do with the waterfall methodology. This way of doing allows the company to be much more current, to be able to respect the latest market needs, or to be much more competent when integrating new technologies. So when the product is ready to launch, it has been able to evolve as fast as the trends. Considering that the current century is a century of change and continuous movement, this is a great advantage since launching an obsolete product would be wastage.

References

Aydin, S., & Yasarol, L. (2018). The contribution of agile marketing to the efficiency of marketing operations: An emprical study in a telecommunication company.

Denning, S. (2018). The age of agile: How smart companies are transforming the way work gets done. Amacom.

Evans, I. (2006). Agile Delivery at British Telecom. Methods and Tools, 14(2), 20-27. http://www.methodsandtools.com/PDF/mt200602.pdf

Hagen, B., Zucchella, A., & Ghauri, P. N. (2019). From fragile to agile: marketing as a key driver of entrepreneurial internationalization. International Marketing Review.

Hoffman, T. (2008, March 11). BT: A case study in agile programming.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2650760/application-development/bt--a-case-study-in-agile-programming.html

Langley, D. J., van Doorn, J., Ng, I. C., Stieglitz, S., Lazovik, A., & Boonstra, A. (2020). The Internet of Everything: Smart things and their impact on business models. Journal of Business Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.12.035

Olteanu, C. G. (2018). IT agile transformation. Academy of Economic Studies. Economy Informatics, 18(1), 23-31. http://www.economyinformatics.ase.ro/content/EN18/03%20-%20olteanu.pdf

Rasmusson, J. (2015). What is Agile?
http://www.agilenutshell.com/.