Why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies to execute projects?
TheCodeWork Team | 21 December 2022
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Why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies to Execute projects– why are we discussing this today? To answer this question, let’s go back a bit and see how the tech innovation landscape has changed in the last few years.
Up until a few decades back, big companies did most of the research and development, within their own walls. Only huge corporations like IBM had the enormous resources to set up their own research labs and come up with cutting-edge products. This gave them a huge competitive advantage over others (read: newcomers)and consequently they reaped major profits too.
Fast forward to now, and R&D is no longer a strategic weapon only wielded by the big tech companies. In fact, newer, smaller companies are now coming to the forefront by developing innovative products that meet market needs more effectively.
In fact, due to their inherently agile nature, smaller companies are the driving forces of innovation these days. And many bigger companies are struggling to catch up.
By definition, innovation is risky and has the potential to fail. This doesn’t sit well with the approach of many large corporations. As companies get bigger, their capacity to innovate often gets restricted by their size, protocols, and fears of loss.
Small companies, on the other hand, have a higher risk-tolerance threshold. This also enables smaller companies to be hyper-responsive to the needs of their customers.
Talking of which, are you looking for a tech team to implement your project idea? We at TheCodeWork would like to hear all about it!
Now circling back to the core topic – Why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies to execute projects? Read on to find out!
Advantages Of Hiring Niche Companies – Hear me out!
As a big tech company, you might have all the financial resources you need for researching and developing new products. However, there’s an important thing to keep in mind. Sometimes, it takes someone with a fresh viewpoint to come up with a product that will serve the future.
This is why there are some unique benefits to hiring a niche company to get your project executed.
Here are some of them!
(Mind you, this is by no means an exhaustive list!)
1. Niche companies implement innovations more quickly
INNOVATION!
Innovation is the buzzword of the 21st century, wouldn’t you agree? And niche companies almost always take the cake when it comes to executing innovative ideas. Think Spider.io, or Nest, for example, all of whom Google recently acquired for their innovative products.
There are some notable reasons for this, of course. Let me walk you through:
Niche companies typically consist of new-age thinkers who are experts in their respective fields. So they’re able to come up with newer ways to solve existing problems.
They do not need to clear every trivial point through various departments. In other words, a small business has fewer hurdles to jump when it comes to innovation & execution.
Pivoting is easier for niche companies. Why? Well because they don’t always have to spend months assessing new ideas. Which is why they can quickly design and implement new ideas.
Smaller businesses with fewer staff can quickly decide whether or not to pursue a particular idea. Large corporations, on the other hand, have to adhere to pre-established guidelines and protocols. This often bogs down the speed of the project and wracks up enormous bills for the client–aka, you. Not very ideal, is it?
All the above points are some of the major reasons that contribute to making niche companies better placed for innovation. I am sure you already see the light here.
In fact, many large corporations have realized this too!
That is why more and more companies are facilitating an open sharing of knowledge between small and large companies. Open Innovation, as it is called, is all the rage in the post-pandemic business world.
But what is Open Innovation all about? Let’s see, shall we?
How Open Innovation opens the door for more innovation?
Let’s start with a basic introduction here:
Now is the moment to dive into the question – Why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies? Let’s start with a simple term – “Open Innovation”.
The term Open Innovation was coined in 2003 by Henry W. Chesbrough in his book “Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology.”
It described how businesses are increasingly reimagining the key processes in which they create new ideas and deliver them to market. Nowadays, more and more companies are leveraging external ideas while utilizing their in-house R&D beyond their ongoing internal operations.
As you can see, Open Innovation is by no means a new term. It has been around for quite some time, and companies have been employing it for even longer. For example, open innovation is what helped Cisco Systems keep up with Lucent Technologies despite lacking much in-house R&D capacity.
Sounds fascinating? Let me go into a bit more detail here!
[Lucent Technologies invested heavily in researching new materials and cutting-edge components all by itself. Cisco, on the other hand, looked out of their inner walls to obtain whatever technology it needed. Often it partnered up with smaller companies or startups for promising new ideas. In this way, Cisco was able to match– and sometimes even surpass–the R&D outputs of a giant like Lucent.]
There are more examples like Cisco–even more now than before!
Slack, one of the most popular business communication applications, reached out to the design firm MetaLab to fine-tune their website and logo. The rest, as we know, is history.
Haier has established a global network of over 400,000 “solvers” called the Haier Open Partnership Ecosystem (HOPE). It comprises technical experts and organizations who assist the company in tackling challenges across 1,000 domains. Every year, over 200 problems are put up and discussed on HOPE. This is how Haier came up with its hit Tianzun Wind Tunnel design, which has inputs from as many as 33 institutions all over the world.
Already see Why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies? I am sure you do!
So you see, magic can occur when big companies collaborate with niche companies to combine resources with innovation. Sounds like a win-win all around, doesn’t it?
In that context, no matter what company you belong to–be it a big tech company or a niche one–now is the perfect time to hop onto the Open Innovation trend!
Please reach out to us at TheCodeWork if you are looking for companies to discuss your open innovation projects with. We would love to be a part of it!
Bureaucracy is a bug that plagues many big companies. It’s the reason why sometimes very innovative ideas get bogged down in organizational red tape and never see the light of day.
It dulls initiative, discourages risk-taking, and suffocates creativity. Sounds quite damping, doesn’t it? However, bureaucracy is a necessary evil and most big corporations have it in place in a bid to ensure consistency both
internally (with employees) and
externally (with consumers)
In large organizations, often decisions have to go through several rounds of approvals. Consequently, approval processes or authorizations can take a long time. However, smaller companies with fewer employees don’t need to do this.
That is why they are generally more flexible than their larger corporate counterparts. Less bureaucracy results in lesser red tape. All of this leads to a faster time-to-market, and you can get your project executed in much less time.
Hey!
Do you want to see your tech project executed with the latest tech stack and bright innovation? This is your sign to team up with niche companies like TheCodeWork which specialize in fast and seamless product development and more importantly, product thinking.
Project scopes aren’t set in stone. We all know that, don’t we? The scope of a project is bound to change a bit–or a lot–as time progresses. And you’ll find that smaller companies or SMBs can accommodate such changes more easily.
How, you ask? Well, that’s because they follow a more AGILE management approach. And yes, just like the name suggests, this makes smaller companies more adaptive to changes.
Basically, agile management employs brief development cycles known as “sprints.”
Each sprint takes into account the feedback from both sides – client as well as the teams’ side. So instead of the BIG final reveal, the clients are always in the loop about what’s going on with their project. No last-minute nasty surprises there, see?
All of this enables companies to respond more effectively to emerging market trends.
Never miss out on a developmental milestone where your product’s concerned! Always stay in the loop with TheCodeWork’s Product thinking & Development expertise!
Active listening is the all-important key to perfectly executing a product idea. And small businesses have got this one in their pockets. Most small firms make it their business to listen to what their clients want. This makes it much easier for you–as the client–to communicate your wants and know that it won’t fall on deaf ears.
Basically what I am saying is the personal care that each project receives in niche companies. I mean, who doesn’t want that?
Small firms, especially today’s startups, have special mechanisms in place such as feedback loops.
This allows clients to give valuable insights and inputs at any stage in the product development process. This in turn paves the way for hassle-free two-way communication. This two-way dialogue can influence the future product design and scope of service. Pretty convenient, don’t you think?
And there’s more:
In this way, the big tech companies can keep abreast of their work’s progress at each step when they recruit a smaller company. Most small companies will give a project demonstration after every developmental milestone.
So everyone is ALWAYS on the same page.
Do you have any project ideas that you would like to hear innovative solutions for? Let’s have a talk?
5. Small businesses provide a greater degree of care
In keeping with the practice of active listening, smaller businesses are also known for providing a higher degree of care for their clients. Since they typically have fewer projects on the go at one time, they can fully focus and commit to every project that they undertake.
This enables them to provide a greater level of attention and involvement that most big companies aren’t structured to provide.
And that’s not all! Usually, individuals who start (or work in) a small business are fuelled by a strong passion for their craft. You’ll see them constantly honing their skills for self-growth, aided with an appetite for innovation.
And if you happen to be the client in question, they’ll invest in both you and the company.
Bottom Line
So all in all, what we learnt is that – smaller companies tend to deal with a smaller clientele, they have the benefit of knowing every client personally. This allows them to provide more personalized and tailored services for each client.
This can be very useful when executing big projects since they will get to assess the needs and develop a solution that is custom-made for the same.
In addition to that, when niche companies and large corporations pool their resources, they can enjoy the best of both worlds—innovation and influence. So many reasons to answer why Big Tech Companies Should Hire Niche Companies, right?
This is why we at TheCodeWork believe in open partnerships for maximum tech innovation and success. So, if you have a cutting-age, groundbreaking project in mind, we would like to hear all about it!
Do you want to see your tech project executed with the latest tech stack and utmost attention to detail? Then sign up with TheCodeWork’s tech team now!
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