Moving from a huge multinational organisation to a small software company, however, with a diverse workforce and international clients, can seem like an odd thing to do. Surely there are more opportunities to do cool and impactful stuff at scale in a large company? All the tools, knowledge and multitude of skills and competences mean endless possibilities, right? While this is true, it can also at times be challenging to respond quickly to changing needs and find the right people, processes and existing knowledge for the task at hand.

Why small is big

There are many upsides to being small, both for vendors and clients and partners. Some of which I’ve noticed so far are.

In a smaller organisation, there is less requirement for the opportunities to scale and support the weight of a large organisation. This means that there are more chances to approach the small cool opportunities and companies for whom smaller projects can be big and potentially transformative. 

There is more room to adapt and change as internal communications become easier and decision making is faster. Since there aren’t so many people to start with, and the organisation structure is very flat you will always reach people fast and decisions can be made directly without need for timely approval rounds.

There is a greater sense of involvement and commitment from everybody as planning and decision making is usually more transparent and you can see the impact of your own work on a daily basis.

Designing the design offering

Joining a company that doesn’t really have a design offering is daunting but refreshing at the same time. It’s exciting to be able to define, in collaboration with co-workers of course, what we offer and how we as a company prefer to do things and how we can best support our clients. However, this is only the starting point for adapting our offering, ways of working, tools and templates to best fit the client instead of internal processes.

So, sometimes it is a good thing to go small to be able to do big things. If you feel that a nimble and humble software and design company like Riimu would be a good match for you, reach out and let’s figure out how we can use design and software to help you grow and stay relevant.