Brian Bloom, a reporter for IT World Canada, reports on Canada's booming economy and how tech start-ups such as Igloo Software are contributing to this. Brian finds that a key to successful company is not innovation, but agility.
Canada's economy has seen better days. But for young, smart IT companies with good social skills, business has never been better.
One can hardly keep up with the news of this or that acquisition: on Monday, Salesforce.com announced it is planning to acquire GoInstant Inc., a Nova Scotia-based startup that made its name through a Web-based platform that allows for "co-browsing"- basically screen-sharing without downloading anything.
All business is becoming social. But while it's the major players that have the most capital to invest in researching new collaborative tools, it almost seems like it's the little people who have the biggest ideas. Or is our perception somehow skewed to favour the little guy?
I asked Andrew Dixon, vice-president of marketing and operations at Igloo Software Inc., a small Canadian company that develops cloud-based social platforms. Formerly a Microsoft executive, he's seen the inner workings of both worlds. He told me that it's agility, not innovation per se, which gives startups an edge.
"It's not as if there aren't very, very bright people, and innovative people that work in big companies," he says. "Of course there are. But their ability to be able to take their ideas and transform them into a product that they can bring to market - if you're a big company it just takes longer to turn the ship."
"You're able to deliver on this idea of innovation or these new capabilities that are very innovative much, much faster. And that's what makes you so attractive to larger companies who just can't do that as quickly."
Read the full article here.
4 Comments
Thanks for this post. Indeed, translating an idea into a product requires agility - moving from the shelf to the street requires one to know, well, how to navigate through market realities.
Im curious, though, that while smaller companies might be able to move much faster than the big players, what reasons, aside from red tape, realize this?...Just a question/thought!
I appreciate your response Ali, thank you :) That is a great question and while I feel there are many potential responses to that, I am going to go ahead and speak from my heart :) --> In my opinion.... I personally feel it is the process within the red tape that causes the longevity of the process. The more people that are in a company, the more people you have to impress - the more departments it has to get passed through, and the more standards you have to meet. A benefit of smaller companies like Igloo is the open communication that is present within the departments AKA each department is informed of what is going on in each one. On top of this, with public companies, I feel their sole objectives is to please not only their customers, but also their shareholders, which again, elongates the release cycle. At Igloo, we take pride in creating an web 2.0 product that is not only agile, but one that also exceeds in quality :)
In most cases, it is a problem how different the technology platforms are and how the companies actually bring their technology to market. Microsoft will most likely have a host of disconnected teams building the next version of MS SharePoint i.e. front end, database, QA etc... In my experience, these teams will work in silos, and only on their part of the release. Imagine trying to integrate the two... Yikes.
Hiya!
Sorry for the delayed response - great responses, backed by experience too!
However, while I realize the agility smaller organizations have, one must not overlook the fact that each individual in an organization comes with a backpack of communication styles and patterns. If using enterprise setups is not in his or her backpack, generating a habit will be a challenge.
What does this mean? To me - policy! I find it revealing that coporate intranets MUST have policy to accompany it. This is not to police corporate communications but , instead, nudge it towards the right path. And, oh my, how important is a badges and point system here - everyone can lead in their own right, be recognized and noticed!
My two cents....:)
p.s. Christine - apologies for the delay on your email questions - will be responded to by Tuesday :):)
Post a comment