Learning lessons from innovative small companies

Well-run smaller companies are often agile and responsive, in short, they are communication innovators — more so when compared to the giant corporate dinosaurs at the top of the financial food chain. This realisation became most apparent after a recent presentation given by one of the largest private banking institutions in South Africa outlining three solutions that would live up to numerous marketing and communication objectives. Why, I asked myself, is such a sizeable corporation this nervous of deploying new(ish) technology as basic as an electronic newsletter?

After encountering this hurdle time and again, I’ve come to blame fear and stability. The more financially stable larger corporate is often too afraid to make a decision. After all, why risk ridicule from colleagues with a hiccup during the electronic evolution process? Small businesses on the other hand, need to adapt or die. Innovation is the order of the day. Without the comfort of a regular salary on the 28th of every month, ultimate responsibility begins and ends with the business decision maker.

Large corporations could extract more benefit from their excellent resources by adopting the agile approach enjoyed by SMEs when deploying new technology solutions. Here are some useful tips on how to do this:

Appoint and empower
Identify and appoint the most suitable team before empowering them with enough decision making authority to avoid lengthy micro-management. This will result in the best possible actions being taken, and ultimately in better outcomes since departments are effortlessly able to draw on the knowledge of specialist practice areas. Naturally, clear objectives need to be stipulated and expected outcomes communicated to ensure that deliverables are met.

Invest in best practice
Stay abreast with the norm and best practice ideas in your particular industry. Better still, make certain that your company knows about it too. In this way, staff are able to select the most appropriate service providers without countless internal evaluations and approvals delaying the process further.

Measure effectiveness
Regularly gauge the effectiveness of the selected service provider. As the specialist consultant, ask them to provide you with a realistic activity timeline, clearly defining roles and responsibilities. This will provide all parties with benchmarks while also breaking up seemingly large goals into more achievable steps.

Distributed review
Have a review of work and ideas with a core team but appoint one person to act as a link to the service provider and to make final decisions. Again, it’s best not to expect the external resource to seek approvals when ultimate responsibility lies with one individual. Remember also to set a review for a period, i.e. three months into the new activity to make sure things are actually working out as planned.