Good article on the advantages of staying small in the NY Times. A Business Forced to Shrink May be Stronger covers a number of reasons why being and staying small can be advantageous. Good quote from marketing Guru Seth Godin:
"Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them quickly. Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs."
To expand on Seth's point, small businesses have the ability and agility to quickly adapt and adjust to a changing business environment.
We've recently started a project looking at small business innovation and we've already seen many examples of this. Simply put, small businesses can innovate much faster than big businesses.
A good article indeed. In fact, bMighty.com promoted the same idea in our Manifesto last year.
Small Is The New Large
http://www.bmighty.com/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210300131
Posted by: Fredric Paul | January 12, 2009 at 07:35 PM
I find bMighty to be an excellent source of information on technology and small business and follow it daily.
The manifesto is well worth reading for anyone interested in small business.
Posted by: Steve | January 13, 2009 at 09:44 AM
I don't mean to break up the party here, but... what else is new?
Yes, a small company can change direction faster than a big one. Yes, there are some advantages to being small over big, most having to do with agility. What's really interesting though is when a big company is able to act small and change direction Even When They Don't Have To; like Microsoft. That is, pre-1997 Microsoft.
Stroking small business is appreciated when things are rough and looking to get rougher (remember the 70s?), but the NYT is sort of rehashing stuff we all know.
- Curtis
http://ShipItOnTheSide.com - Build a software startup as a side job.
Posted by: Curtis Gray | January 16, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Annother advantage is that small businesses will be much more flexible when it comes to upcoming healthcare policy changes that are expected to happen within the next 2 to 4 years whereas the larger companies will be forsed to make immediate and drastic changes to comply with any new regulations.
Posted by: health leads exclusive | February 03, 2009 at 09:56 PM
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Posted by: bob | January 09, 2012 at 04:32 AM