Joel Spolsky wrote an interesting piece in Inc. magazine recently, comparing the cultures of Microsoft and Google.
Spolsky was meeting with both companies to discuss his website, StackOverflow. His site was developed for programmers to ask each other highly technical programming questions.
He draws some interesting conclusions. As a former Microsoft employee, he noted the culture shift that has happened within the company since his time there in the early ‘90s. It has become a large corporation with a large corporate culture. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just different.
Other observations include, both companies are filled with smart people on the cutting edge of technology and they have the resources to turn ideas into reality. Both gave Spolsky advice on the direction he should take his company and ideas on how to improve what he currently offers.
His key take-away was the difference in the scale of their operations to his own. At PKF Texas, we find that distinction to be true as well. The technical aspects of what we do mirrors what the Big Four, for a variety of reasons, most importantly the regulations that we are all required to follow. Our operation is just on a different scale.
Different scale means to us that we can, in many cases, move quicker and provide solid advice or assistance on a variety of projects or issues. More importantly than quickness is our ability to draw from many resources, friends of our firm, and business partners in the community. What happens then is that because of our knowledge, we can extend ourselves vertically and can you more timely and cost effective advice and consultation.
As a business owner, do you look to firms larger than your own in your industry for guidance? What parallels can you draw between your business and theirs?