The goal of every small business is to grow up to be a big business someday. Until that time comes the relationship between a small business and a large corporation can be rather strained. Big businesses tend to dominate the marketplace, making it hard for small businesses competing with the big guys. This can lead to uncertainty for small businesses struggling to survive. Large corporations may be getting a greater share of the marketplace, but they also must fend off challenges from small businesses which have the ability to be more flexible in their product and service offerings, even though they can’t pull in the resources the big guys have at their disposal. Regardless if you are a small or large, business Ethernet is a must have for conducting necessary business.
Survival of the Fittest
The underlying tension is a survival instinct. Small businesses fear, number one, that they won’t be able to match price or that they won’t have enough resources, staff, or time to pull off their projects and make enough money to grow. While large businesses fear they will and then present a huge challenge to their own business models that won’t be able to react swiftly enough. Big businesses fear losing their business overnight to a more nimble competitor.
The Internet: The Great Equalizer
Even though small businesses don’t have the capital available to large businesses it’s a great time to be a small business because the Internet evens the score in many ways.
The Internet has provided a boon to both small businesses and large corporations. Small businesses can leverage their websites to appear bigger than they actually are, thus grabbing some of the prestige of a larger business. Large businesses can use the Internet to cut costs even more significantly and make them more responsive by automating help functions and product ordering online.
However, the internet has also been ideal to create distinct niches for both entities, thus helping to eliminate some of the tension. For instance, small businesses can make use of online local listings more than a big business, which has a global business model. They may both still be using the Internet, but they are learning to compete in different marketplaces to keep both alive and thriving.
Technology Can Blur the Line Between Big and Small Businesses
The price of technology has drastically dropped as the capability and functionality have increased. That means that even small businesses can now afford to use technologies like VoIP and cloud computing. Broadband is available for small businesses, making it possible for them to deliver many of the remote services that only big businesses were able to afford previously.
Small businesses may not have the money to hire a large staff or the resources to buy equipment, but they don’t have to these days. If they have a secure, and efficient, connection that allows them to communicate without the need to hire more staff, like an online website, they can leverage technology to save them money while growing their business more efficiently.
Large businesses also can reach out to their locations around the globe by invoking communications technologies that have that reach without additional expenses in hiring or even laying transoceanic lines (when’s the last time you heard of that happening?).
As long as they have a good provider, they can leverage that infrastructure with offerings like Software-as-a-Service that will allow them to continue to offer their products and services anywhere in the world at a fraction of the cost in the past. It also offers them the flexibility of changing their online offerings quickly without incurring massive development and infrastructure costs normally associated with large businesses.
As both small and large businesses learn their defined niches online, they will continue to reduce tensions and create a healthier economy where both small and large businesses can prosper, but not at each other’s expense.
