A recent remark by Roger Ehrenberg on Sony, quoted on Gen Kanai's blog, brought me some memories from my Samsung years.
My colleagues and I would often whine it's so difficult for individuals at a bigco with stifling culture to start any kind of innovation.
But in retrospect, I think working at a big company had its own advantages. Leveraging these advantages, anyone can start an innovation.
Here's what I think are the advantages of working at a big company:
1. You can fail miserably and yet don't have to lose your personal money
Even if you are A-Rod or Ichiro you only hit 3 or 4 times out of 10 at-bats. This is true in business too - chances are your new business plan will fail no matter how well you had planned it in advance.
Even if your business plan goes wrong at a big company, in most cases, you still get your paycheck without a penny withdrawn from it on your pay day. So this means you can "practice" business with someone else's money - think of a bigco as the business version of a batting cage. You increase your hitting skills, which will certainly help when you become a free agent (ie. starting your own business).
Besides, if your new initiative becomes a smash hit, you will then earn a huge bonus. So you always win: if things go wrong, you earn what you normally earn; if things go well, you earn more.
Did I tell you about my Apple story? Back in 2004 (before Apple launched iTunes phone with Motorola) I contacted Apple to discuss the possibility of a Samsung iPhone.
After I introduced myself and talked about our plan, the other person at Apple said, "By the way, do you think we should bring Steve to the meeting this time?"
I said the stupiest thing I could ever say: "Who's Steve?"
But you should remember that many of those people meet you because of the small logo on your business card, not because of you. Developing those first encounters into lasting relationships is totally up to you.
Big companies are usually the archive of up-to-minute market information. They are usually a global institution with thousands of high-quality knowledge workers around the world, reporting in with precise market data. You should utilize it.
Also, Big companies know how to pinch the last drop out of people (not necessarily in a bad way). Once you are working under the system, you think it's the stupiest thing in the world. But once you get out of the institution and become the leader, you realize those systems weren't terribly ineffective after all. I'm not saying we should all become evil and try to learn how to manipulate people, but still there are many good organization management skills you can learn from watching how big companies run themselves.
