Think Small to Win Big

Part of our Series on Software and Data Management

Technology teams are overloaded. Back in 2010, Gartner estimated "IT debt" at $500 billion, rising to $1 trillion in 2015. Although there have been increases in IT spending since then, even large enterprises are overwhelmed by trying to keep up with the maintenance backlog while integrating new technologies critical to digital transformation.

It takes a healthy network of companies large and small to build a complex piece of machinery

Bringing in external resources helps these enterprises meet their technical and business goals, as long as they're well matched to their partners. Think a small business technology partner isn't up to the challenge? Working with small business technology partners is the right choice for big business for these reasons:

1. Small Business Technology Partners Offer Lower Costs

You know from seeing how your own large business runs. Big business is burdened by overhead and management layers that increase costs. You pass on those costs to your customers, and so do large technology firms. Smaller firms have much less of their own management and infrastructure to maintain, so they have fewer fixed costs to cover, meaning lower costs for you.

2. Small Business Technology Partners Offer Specialized, Personalized Support

When you work with a small business technology partner, there's minimal bureaucracy dictating how things are done or who you have to work with. Your business is important to your partner, their lean processes are likely to organically accommodate adaptation to your more involved processes, and they listen to your requests and respond to your needs. The people assigned to your project are carefully hand-picked for skill sets pinpointed to solve your technology issues; they aren't just pulled out of the pool because they were on the bench. Small businesses seldom have benches, relying on proactive recruiting processes aimed at selecting the best for each key role of the business' service lines . The whole team and even the entire contract are crafted specifically to meet your project's needs.

3. Small Business Technology Partners Offer Proactive Support

Your business is significant and meaningful to your small business technology partner--the revenue from working with you isn't just a blip on the books. This means your technology partner will go out of their way to make things work. They'll be flexible, typically harnessing a deeper ownership mentality that fosters innovative problem solving using industry best practices. With proactive employees motivated by real opportunity to grow within the small business and win the respect of a happy client, engaging a small business technology partner typically results in receiving true best-value, rather than feeling nickel-and-dimed.

4. Small Business Technology Partners Offer Distributed Decision-Making

Your contacts from a small business technology partner will be empowered to make decisions. Requests don't have to be passed up the hierarchy to a senior, senior, senior manager for a decision to be made; your first-line contact has the authority to act. This means it's faster to get decisions, too, and faster for you to get problems handled.

5. Small Business Technology Teams go the Extra Mile

There's minimal slack on a small business technology team. Because the business succeeds based on everyone's contributions and efforts, everyone knows their work is important. That means they treat their work as if it's important, going beyond the boundaries of their job descriptions in order to make projects and the company succeed.

6. Small Business Technology Teams Form a Big Partnership Network

A big company can be a fortress, shutting out all different perspectives in favor of their "approved" process. Small businesses must be flexible, in order to be able to provide comprehensive and precise solutions. Therefore, small business technology partners maintain a large business network, giving them access to resources, skills, and ways of doing things that go beyond their usual approach. Whatever you need, small businesses can nimbly bring in the skills and resources, without having to break through bureaucracy.

Are you a big business looking for an agile technology partner to work with you and solve your IT problems? Contact us to talk more about how our nimble size makes us an ideal software partner.