How small companies survive in a big-company world.
The common perception is that bigger companies have an edge in the business world. Size facilitates economies of scale, greater resources to throw at a job and a more impressive revenue stream to please investors.
However, that doesn’t mean smaller companies are fading away. In fact, there are numerous examples of businesses thriving despite their small numbers. Two such firms using customer-focused strategies to have an impact beyond their size are Brigitflex Inc. and Hunter Technologies Corp.
Brigitflex: Both an advantage and a challenge
Brigitflex Inc., the re-formed version of Pentaplex under the guidance of Brigitte Lawrence, is an Elgin, Ill.-based company currently boasting between five and 10 employees on any given day. But its capabilities go beyond what customers might expect from such a small firm.
The company has more than 25,000 square feet of manufacturing capabilities under one roof, including equipment for drilling, lamination, plating and routing. Though the number of actual employees is minuscule, Lawrence cites the flexibility that she has in ramping up to meet customer demands.
“In our area, there are many [who are] out of work, and if you look at statistics of how many board houses were in the Chicagoland area a few years ago and how many closed their doors ... I have a great pool of experienced people always looking for work,” she says.
Brigitflex has used numerous strategies to increase its competitiveness in the marketplace. It has upgraded its equipment by buying items at auctions of closed companies, saving money in the process. It has also worked closely with the Illinois Business Development and the U.S. Department of Commerce to leverage opportunities available to minority/women-owned businesses.
Lawrence says her company’s size encourages a collaborative culture that can be an asset in meeting customer demands. “We listen to our customer needs, and we listen to our employees as to what they think is possible,” she says. “Then, as engineers, we study, learn and experiment with new materials or make our own to establish the goals set in front of us.
“We are always upgrading, changing, learning, experimenting … we are always looking into the future [to see] what will be needed tomorrow. What can we do that others cannot? … I do not want to do large production runs—that’s for others. I do what the others cannot in small niche specialty work.”
With a limited budget, Brigitflex relies on word-of-mouth to generate business. “With good product and good relations, people talk,” Lawrence says.
Though the opportunities are out there, the nature of playing a hands-on role in running a small firm brings similar challenges to any big-time CEO.
“You learn to live, eat and breathe your business to make it work. It is never just 9–5, it is 24/7,” Lawrence says. “I must stay on top at all times and must surround myself with people that can teach me so I can stay on top.”
Hunter Technology Corp.: The more we know, the more value we can bring
Entering its 40th year in business, Santa-Clara, Calif.-based Hunter Technology Corp. manufactures and assembles multilayer printed circuit boards in both quick-turn prototype and production quantities. It is an ISO 9001-registered firm that offers in-house design, fabrication, assembly and contract manufacturing services on-site.
The company currently has 146 employees—bigger than Brigitflex, but not close to being among the largest in the industry. One challenge this presents is the need to take advantage of technological advancements and create efficiencies.
“As a relatively small company offering a wide variety of services, we challenge ourselves to keep abreast of advancements in technology, design and manufacturability across all disciplines and continuously invest in R&D to ensure that advances in one area can reliably be processed through all other areas,” says company president Joseph O’Neil.
This focus on constant improvement extends throughout the company. At Hunter Technology, everyone is responsible for continuously adding to his or her knowledge base. All employees are required to take one continuing education course each year, and even encouraged to do more.
“The more we know, the more value we can bring to our customers, and we firmly believe that this is what our customers want from us,” O’Neil says.
Being a smaller firm gives the company the flexibility to make decisions to take care of existing customers rather than chasing more lucrative contracts simply to please shareholders.
“It appears that there is a lot of pressure on the tier one and two public companies to focus on top-line revenues,” he says. “As a privately held corporation, we maintain the flexibility to service customers on projects that may not meet the top-line revenue requirements of a public company.”
Without the advertising and marketing budget of a larger firm, Hunter Technology looks to create business in a number of ways, from professional organizations to more traditional dissemination of information.
“Our involvement with IPC has served us well over the years,” O’Neil says. “In addition to assisting us in our effort to keep on top of a wide range of disciplines, it has been terrific in terms of networking, finding people of like minds, committed to servicing the electronic manufacturing market.
“In terms of marketing strategies, we simply try to disseminate knowledge; we have found that if we share our experiences with our customer base, it is very well received.”
