The other day I was watching some tug boats help manoeuvre a large tanker in to port. Despite the huge size of the tanker, the small tugs made swift work of such a difficult task. This got me thinking again about one of my pet subjects, which is why large companies all too often insist on getting similarly sized companies to solve some of their smaller software issues. If the captain of a tanker needs a quick change in direction, he doesn’t ask for another tanker to help with the manoeuvre.

All large companies have software projects that need undertaking from time to time that are simply much better suited to smaller companies (tugs). I’m not talking about huge enterprise deployments where they may be better off with the large suppliers, but the smaller projects that may last from a couple of weeks for a couple of people to several weeks with a possible team no larger than three or four people. Large companies carry with them huge overheads, which mainly manifest themselves in terms of processes that ultimately slow everything down and raise the cost.

The problem is that for many large companies today they have agreements with preferred suppliers and these suppliers tend to be other large companies as there is a perceived reduction in risk in using them and the procurement process is easier.

The large company is worried that the smaller company is going to suddenly disappear, or their key developers are all going to get knocked down by the proverbial bus lurking round every corner. In practice this tends not be be anything like such an as issue as people think. In my experience of dealing with both large and small suppliers of software solutions which are either relatively small or have a relatively short lifetime, the biggest risk is someone leaving in the middle of a project. It is assumed that a large company will have a huge pool of available resource in which to bring a replacement to the table. In reality their people are tied up on other projects and they don’t find it much easier to find replacements than small companies do. At the end of the day, for these smaller tasks the knowledge will be held in just one or two heads, whether in a huge company or a small one.

When it comes to procurement, it’s slightly tougher. On the face of it we all know it is much easier to go to the local hypermarket than to source individual suppliers for the goods we want. However, we all know that once you’ve found the supplier, the quality of the final product is usually much better. I don’t think it would really take a large company that long to find a number of smaller suppliers that could solve 90% of their typical bespoke software needs, especially if, dare I say it, they get some external help in order to find these suppliers.

Over the years I have come across a few inspired managers in large companies that are prepared to put up a fight internally with their normal procurement processes to go and seek out smaller agile companies that can deliver quality solutions quickly. The risks they have taken have paid off as they have had the benefits of the solution in place quickly, hence increasing productivity or reducing costs much sooner. What’s more the overall cost was much lower than the incumbent supplier would charge. So what real risks did they take - well probably the biggest risk they took was allocating time to find the right supplier, but this is usually offset by the time savings of using a smaller company. The other risk is upsetting the procurement department - but that’s worth living with when you get your solution delivered faster, cheaper and of higher quality than their normal solution.

Miles