It seems as if, everywhere I go these days, I'm confronted with a growing tension very similar to the one mentioned in the title of this blog. But let me digress first.
One of the Belgian "Walmarts" is the Carrefour, a large (French-owned) chain of supermarkets. Carrefour once bought the (Belgian) chain of Maxi-GB's - which were supermarkets in their own right, and re-stocked and re-branded them. There's not so subtle differences between the types of products stocked previously by MaxiGB and what is stocked now by Carrefour, but in general Carrefour in Belgium has become one of these supermarkets where you can find "basically everything" one would expect in a shop a household typically visits on a weekly basis to restock on daily necessities. You'll find a wall of petfood, lots of vegetables, several walls of refrigerated and pre-packaged meat, etc.
However, in one or more corners, they have these boutique-style shop-in-a-shops (Ikana IIRC), which don't "sell" pre-packaged stuff but actually staff their counter with someone packaging and wrapping things to order. Of course, what is sold there is exactly the same as what is sold in the refrigerators, it just gets re-packaged by someone you can have a human-to-human interaction with. Thus, Carrefour must somehow recognize the need for boutique-style shopping (and people prefer the non-hygienic re-packaging above the packaged goods).
Boutique-style shopping happens a lot of times. Many people must have their favorite bakery with "the best bread in town", or prefer the pasta salad from the little shop on the corner above the one they can buy in Carrefour. Sometimes it is quality or taste causing this preference, sometimes it is feeling treated like a human.
Moving into the corporate world now, let's see how things are quite similar.
Don't you love the great service of a small copycenter that is smart and thriving enough to have good machines, yet small enough to value you as a customer, so you know they'll call you when you messed up the PDF you sent them for duplication. Two weeks ago, I ordered a computer at an independent local PC shop (employing 14 people, nonetheless), and I got to actually sit down in a private office with a real desk to talk about my personal needs when I made clear I had some budget to burn - try that with Dell (or Apple).
Of course, big can be better at times: bigger companies can make big projects turn around... but also mess them up big time. Maybe IT projects shouldn't be that big? We all want agile, but still love large IT service companies with large teams of project managers and analysts and all these lovely, bottomline-carving, overhead-inducing folks.
While tearing down (or rather: refrigerating) one alliance we have been involved in for the past few years, somebody else walks in trying to sell me on establishing a legal entity around another ad hoc gathering of likewise companies.
And I ask him why, and he somehow suggests "people will take us more serious if we do". What people? And in the end, when that alliance exists, and someone will want to do business with it, who is actually going to do the work? The same folks as we are now, all small companies, boutique-shops trying hard to make a difference, establishing our small niche markets, trying to stick out against the crop.
Our pasta salad is different, and if you like it, you'll want to buy it directly from us. And if a project is too big, we'll simply tell you to walk away, or collaborate with a befriended company. You don't want us to lie and act as if we are any bigger than we actually are, don't you?
I believe, however unrealistic that might be, in an economy of small players. Agile, cost-sensitive, eager to win and please customers. I'm fine with that other economy out there, of large corporations and fancy-sounding alliances and PR agencies and whatnot. I just don't feel part of that economy anymore, and I don't think my customers do as well. I laugh at magazines and journalists who are eager to report on an economy they look up to, yet don't pay their staff a decent living to really take time and learn what is going on. I laugh at A-list bloggers who silently wander around on conferences, feeling too insecure to actually talk with someone in real life - yet being hyped by wannabe A-listers.
Boutique shops should quit striking the pose and stop longing to be part of that other economy. Be who you are and try to make fun, while doing stuff that pays you to afford being who you are. Stop jumping on that bandwagon. If Walmart goes boutique, it's time to quite the race. Be yourself.
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I really resonate with what you write here Steven.