It's the small fry that are thriving.
But then they mistakenly predict that the big players will dominate the market henceforth. All of the small, "under-capitalized" little guys supposedly are perishing.
Qwest recently ran a snide, little newspaper ad featuring a fictitious "Buzz DSL" poster with an "Out of Business" sign slapped across it. The tagline was, "Seems like DSL providers are failing left and right. Make sure yours isn't one of them." That's a mighty smug attitude for an outfit that still can't run DSL to my home, a mere eight miles from its headquarters.
It's the small fry who's thriving, based on my observations. You may have noticed that most of our "Solutions" case studies feature little outfits—even a one-person shop now and then. They're doing interesting jobs, making money and staying busy as cats on a mouse ranch.
In contrast, a photographer we recently sent to the HQ of a self-proclaimed "leading global e-business consultancy" reported, "They have a huge office space with mostly empty desks. I think a lot more people used to work there. It felt like a ghost town in the making."
Year after year, surveys show that two-thirds of IT system buyers choose a local solutions provider over nationwide firms. Even branch offices of megacorporations tend to buy from a local outfit, if they're allowed that option. The message customers send is clear: Small is better.
Big companies do not foster personal relationships. It's difficult to get any comments—good or bad—out of the customers of gigantic solutions providers; they seem rather indifferent to their "partners."
Sometimes the customer's project leader can't even recall the name of the solutions provider's team leader.
But the customers of little solutions providers have plenty to say.
"It's great when the CEO takes our problems personally. I can call [Joe CEO] on Saturday if I have a problem," says one customer. All you get at MegaCorp on Saturday is an auto-attendant recording.
"All of XYZ Corp.'s people are professional and very knowledgeable." Deliberately small solutions providers don't have to hire school buses full of green, recent graduates. They don't have a lot of people, but they have a ton of real-life experience.
"The big guys tried to force our problem into their business model. But Joe asked what we needed and then figured out how to do it." I hear that one a lot; customers love can-do attitudes and hate cookie-cutter "best practices."
"Joe gave us the right-sized solution for a tenth of what the big guys wanted to charge us for frills we didn't need." That's probably because Joe doesn't have shareholders hounding him for double-digit growth figures at any cost to his customers.
Size does matter, but bigger is not better. Celebrate your smallness, and sell
its benefits to customers. You'll both be happier in the long run.