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Startups vs. Corporations, IT disrupts

the way we conduct business.

Information technology has become a

part of our daily lives. Whether for

social and personal purposes or business

we rely on technology to do our bidding.

The fact that we can communicate with

each other almost at any time and from

any place has brought irreversible

changes to the way we conduct business and it influences every company from

the small family business to giant corporations. This paradigm shift is creating

many changes in today’s business world, it is making some jobs obsolete and on

the other hand it is creating lots of new career opportunities. Information

technology has become a disruptor of the “order” of things and changed the old

ways where giant enterprises due to their sheer size, financial resources and grip

on the market could direct, change and set trends, now even a small startup can

influence the market and shake things up.

The business strategy and tactics are changing because they simply must if your

business wants to stay on top of the game and actually be able to reach the

strategically set goals. These alterations are more common than ever before and

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they are the only way to leverage the opportunities that technology continues to

create and to keep up with the shifts on the market. The common and easy

access to information technology solutions and especially access to

infrastructure by leveraging cloud technology opens new ways for modern era

entrepreneurs and startups to access the most recent IT perks with little to no

capital expenditure and allows them to be agile like never before. Leveraging

IaaS, PaaS and SaaS businesses can allocate their budgets with much more

flexibility and focus on core tasks while purchasing IT as commodity needed for

their operations.

The Startup

Today’s startups are lean and mean competitors and are able to leverage

technology to their advantage and challenge even the biggest enterprises. The

way we build and manage startups today has changed drastically from how we

did that 30 years ago. Based on the mistakes of the past where startups were

treated like smaller versions of bigger companies but lacking their resources

they often struggled to execute their business model. Luckily enough as a human

race we are able to analyze data and learn from our past mistakes (although this

is not always the case looking at the history of our species).

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In the case of building and running startups we have learned from our failures

and reinvented the way new businesses need to be build and operated before

they can become successful companies. Experience has thought us that the

scientific approach to startup management in the MBA style was wrong and that

instead of executing a business model a startup needs to search for one and make

sure it has the right value proposition that fits their targeted market. Although At

some point when a startup becomes a successful company the founders should

look for (if they aren’t themselves) qualified executives that can help them run

the company. Starting businesses require direct involvement of founders

(decision makers) to keep agility and to make pivots based on real customers

feedback. When done right this permits a startup to develop a minimum viable

product that fits the right market. This approach allows new businesses to keep

nimbleness and requires a lot less startup capital which used to be wasted on

sales, marketing, executives and often waterfall development which evolved

around a product that was nothing more or less than an idea of the founders

without actual customer confirmation.

On top of technology becoming a commodity the access to fundraising for

startups has also been revolutionized by information technology. Next to being

financed by family and friends, angel investors, venture capitals or bank loans

and many other ways there is a fairly new approach to get funded by collective

effort via crowdfunding. This method has been enabled by information

technology itself and has drawn countless numbers of startups to funding sites

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like kickstarter.com , indiegogo.com , rockethub.com or fundrazr.com. Not

going any deeper into the business models of startups now we can see the

potential of new businesses to quickly adjust to customer needs and market

changes.

The Corporation

Multinational corporations lack this agility and freedom to pivot. They are giants

that move slowly and each of their moves requires a lot of energy and takes

time. This limits their options to adapt in today’s ever-changing world and

markets. Because of these technology based paradigm shifts no one is safe and

even the giants can fall to new challengers, but the giants aren’t sleeping and

even though they are slow to move or change their direction they have the

luxury to employ other means to correct their set course. Multinational

enterprises break into horizontal markets and leverage their capitals to invest in

buying up equally startups and established companies to gain agility and instead

of making the slow and expensive changes in the direction of the entire

corporation they simply use the new additions to either supplement their main

products or work as separate business units and operate on different markets to

correct the course of their entire venture. These companies by making the

acquisitions are also securing their position on the markets where they are in

fierce competition with each other. Let’s take as an example a few of the

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familiar multinationals: Amazon, Google and Microsoft and see how they have

been keeping their business growing with acquisitions.

Amazon.com, Inc. founded in 1994 which started as an online book store,

expanded to other goods and to technology, has grown to be the biggest in the

world public cloud services provider. Amazon has been acquiring not only its

competitors but it has expanded its business in many directions. Amazon has

taken over companies like: IMDb, Zappos, GoodReads and Liquavista. See a list

of Amazons acquisitions on Wikipedia.org.

Google Inc. started as a search engine and grew to one of the biggest companies

in the world specializing in internet-related services and IT. Google is getting

into everything from cloud solutions and datacenters to mobile technologies and

other horizontal markets via acquisitions of startups. Google is divided into 7

groups: search, chrome and apps, mobile, youtube, ads, geocommerce and

social, and has been acquiring on average 1 company a week in the past few

years. Up to date Google has taken over more than 130 companies which

included: Picasa, Android, YouTube and Motorola Mobility. See a list of

Google’s acquisitions on Wikipedia.org.

Microsoft Corporation has made its way to the top of corporate world shipping

OEM software with personal computers, but they have changed their strategy in

the many years of their existence and expanded greatly into other markets.

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Microsoft has been acquiring businesses like Hotmail (now Outlook), Skype,

Yammer and Nokia Corporation. See a list of Microsoft’s acquisitions

onWikipedia.org.

Microsoft is far beyond its OEM software days and has become one of the most

valuable companies in the world while expanding their business into building

datacenters, gaming devices, office software and mobile phones, and offering

public and private cloud services with Windows Azure.

Next

This trends will surely continue and looking at predictions from Gartner,

Inc.which has identified top 10 strategic technology trends, the listed above and

similar corporations will keep on looking into acquisitions of companies that

have their core business around or are major contributors to these technological

trends:

Mobile Device Diversity and Management

Mobile Apps and Applications

The Internet of Everything

Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker

Cloud/Client Architecture

The Era of Personal Cloud

Software Defined Anything

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Web-Scale IT

Smart Machines

3-D Printing

Chances are that if your business fits this description and you are a key player or

on the verge of ground breaking discovery in one of these areas you either have

been approached or shortly will be approached by a corporation looking to

expand. Businesses and our private lives alike have been invaded and taken over

by technology. There is no denying that this fact and our need for

communication, access to information and mobility create new opportunities and

evolving information technology drives change in how we satisfy these needs.

Companies which are able to leverage this knowledge will be a part of the future

others will fall and be forgotten. This brings us to a conclusion that the way we

conduct business but also live our lives has been drastically changed by

information technology. Ask yourself: is your business keeping up with the

changes and leveraging knowledge and technology to truly secure its future?

Written By: Martin Wielomski

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Martin Wielomski writes and advises about sales, business development, technology and human connection potential and how they can be leveraged in business strategies. He believes in lifelong learning and that continued education is a key in aiding practice and real life experience and one’s passion in reaching true personal potential. During his many years working in the Information Technology Services and Hosting business he was able to develop his leadership, communication and entrepreneurial skills and use them to businesses advantage. Martin strives to

improvement by innovation and leadership through engagement and communication. He is interested and passionate about Startups and their agility and freedom to pivot while searching for executable business model. During his career he proved to be a passionate and realistic manager, business development, sales, customer and business partner relations specialist. His personal qualities are: Passion, Curiosity, Compassion, Daring, Generosity, Accountability, Grit. He specializes in: Sales Leadership, Strategy Development & Execution, International Business Development, C-Level Relations, Staff Development & Motivation, Defining Strategy and Tactics and Lead in their Implementation, Strengthening Vendor/Partner Relationships, Staff Management. His business interests lie in: Cloud Computing, IaaS and SaaS, Datacenters, Telecommunications, Leadership and Management, Sales and Business Development, IT Outsourcing and Hosting.

Website: www.martinwielomski.com