Have you heard about Small Giants? They are companies that prioritize being great over simply being big. They’re the kinds of businesses that prize their values, culture, and community over, exponential growth and high profitability.
“Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big” is a book written by Bo Burlingham. The book was first published in 2005 by Portfolio. Burlingham is an American journalist and author who has written extensively on small business, entrepreneurship, and corporate culture. He is the former editor-at-large of Inc. magazine, where he wrote about a wide range of topics, including small business, corporate culture, and entrepreneurship.
In the book, he tells the stories of 14 privately held companies that have chosen to stay small and remain focused on being great at what they do rather than trying to become big. The book examines the principles and practices that have enabled these companies to excel in their industry while staying true to their core values.
These companies often focus on creating a positive impact in their industry, community, and the world. Examples of Small Giants include Patagonia, Zingerman’s, and New Belgium Brewing.
Adopting a Small Giants mindset can lead to increased employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, and long-term business success. By committing to being a Small Giant, a company can set itself apart in the marketplace and create a unique and authentic brand.
Customers of Small Giants are typically drawn to the company’s values and mission, as well as the high-quality products and services they offer.
These customers value authenticity and a sense of community, and they’re willing to pay a premium for a product or service that aligns with their own values.
These same customers are also likely to be loyal advocates for the brand to others.
Small Giants in turn, often have a strong sense of community and critically essential customer engagement. This in turn creates an emotional connection between the customer and the company. Small Giants also tend to have a story or a unique origin that customers can relate to and feel passionate about.
Purposefulness through data insights
Small Giants have a clear sense of purpose that guides their decision-making, and it’s a core part of their culture. This purpose can be in the form of a mission statement, a set of values, or a corporate vision.
Small Giants also tend to empower their employees to take ownership of their roles and make decisions that align with the company’s values and purpose. This creates a sense of trust and loyalty among the team. Pretectum views this as really only possible by leveraging data.
This data is necessary to understand customer expectations, needs, and preferences. A key characteristic of Small Giants is that they often collect data from customer interactions, surveys, and other sources to gain insight into what their customers want and need.
This information is then used to develop new products and services, improve existing offerings, and create targeted marketing campaigns. Tieing the customer insights to the customer record in turn empowers employees to be more informed about the customer and able to behave and react in targeted and specifically relevant ways.
Small Giants also use data to stay up-to-date on market trends, such as changes in consumer behavior, emerging technologies, and new competitors. This information can be used to adapt to changes in the market and make strategic decisions but can also be derived from studying, aggregating, and attributing customer behavior to specific customer records.
Data is often used to monitor and improve the efficiency of a Small Giant’s operations, such as production processes, inventory management, and supply chain logistics. This can help to reduce costs and improve productivity and though it isn’t tied directly to customer master data management, the marriage of relationships between these types of data and the customer master also helps to inform the Small Giant.
Measuring performance
Small Giants use various pieces of data to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sales, profits, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement and measure the success of business strategies.
Equally, the Small Giant uses data to compare their own performance against industry standards and other companies in their field. This helps them to identify areas where they excel and areas where they need to improve. Think of this as baselining the performance of your call center or service and support personnel relative to industry standards.
Data can provide Small Giants with the insights and information they need to make informed decisions. This enables them to stay competitive, and achieve their goals. By effectively leveraging data, particularly customer data held in a CMDM, Small Giants can gain a better understanding of the customer, the market, and operations, which can help them to improve their performance and achieve long-term success.
To learn more about how Pretectum can help your business to become a Small Giant through the use of Customer Master Data Management, contact us today.