Big companies will fall behind

First off I would like to wish all my readers a very Happy New Year or indeed a Happy New Decade. It seems like no time at all since we were all charging our glasses and toasting the new millennium. That was back in a world without Facebook, Twitter, blogging or apps to turn your phone into a pint of beer, a spirit level or a restaurant critic (or in fact the iPhones to put them on).

At the end of a decade in which the internet truly came into its own, it's hard to predict what the next 10 years could herald. In fact I am not even going to try. I'll stick to putting in my two pennies' worth on the trends that I think we could see emerging in 2010.

First off, I think 2010 could be the year when SMEs really come into their own as an economic powerhouse. Free of the hierarchy and bureaucracy which plagues many large enterprises, they are already starting to open a gap on their slower and heavier enterprise cousins when it comes to cutting costs and delivering real ROI on internal investments. This means they are faster out of the trap when it comes to kick-starting growth in the post-recessionary world.

I have already experienced a recession as both the head of a SME (Conchango) and have seen how smaller companies can steal a march on their competitors when times are bad. The 2001/02 recession was felt particularly strongly by the IT sector but it gave us as a company the catalyst for radical restructure that, while very disruptive, enabled us to challenge current thinking on apps and infrastructure delivery.

Part of this is because smaller businesses have to fight for their very survival and so need to be radical in order to make it through. Bigger businesses often don't see the threat until it is too late (think Woolworths) and those that do have a far bigger task on their hands in trying to turn the ship around.

CIOs of bigger companies shouldn't despair however. There are plenty of examples of big companies who have triumphed when the chips are down so size isn't everything. Take FT.com, a business that saw the future and prepared to face it by bringing in agile IT applications and business change programmes that enabled it to meet internal customer needs in weeks rather than months. Or consider Morrisons and Sainsbury's, two retailers that have found innovative ways to take on the market leader by not being afraid of a little disruption and by understanding and building upon their key strengths.

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