DustFrog

Business Development Manager

Valued Contributor

Transitioning from a small company to a big company, or vice versa Biggest culture shock or lesson learned?

I've recently accepted a position at a new company (congrats via that little arrow below), and it will actually be the first time in my Big Boy career that I'll be working for a big company. All of my previous companies (4 of them) were fewer than 300 people, and this new one is >20,000 employees. This is a bit of a new position at a new division they recently acquired, so while I do have some established framework I'll be sliding into, it seems there will be some tolerance to implementing what I'd like (I will have some reports), at least initially.

What I looked at before I accepted:

The pros are: more money (we are a coin operated profesh after all), better "looking" resume, national exposure to more divisions (if I don't fuck it up), learning a different "culture", and more stability.

The cons are: Loss of some freedom ("You mean I have to actually submit PTO and Expense Reports??"), I now have a stack of management on top of me when normally I report to the owner, more politics, slower to implement suggestions (if at all).

Overall this should fit well with my 5-10 year plans, but we'll see!

Besides cover sheets on TPS reports, can anyone who has made a similar transition (either from big <-> small or small <-> big) share their biggest culture shocks, or what was the hardest to adjust to?

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Hard4Card

Good Citizen

2

Director, Enterprise Sales

Agree with everything that Mooney said. I've gone both ways over the last few years and the biggest change for me was that the startup (fintech space) I worked for had a culture where if a large enough enterprise prospect asked for a new/additional feature to our solution, we would tell them that we "had it" and then rush to build it for them in the background within a 30-60 day timeframe. Working for a Fortune 100 payments company, new products on the roadmap took >1 year to actually go live, with the vast majority of them getting axed somewhere in the development pipeline. So from a sales perspective, I had to shift my mentality of not always guaranteeing that we could do what the client was asking for when I moved from a smaller to a bigger company because what you have from a product standpoint is what you have, and it isn't going to change anytime soon just because one prospect is asking for it.

someoneinsales

Tycoon

1

Director of Sales

A few things that weren't really shocking but were annoying when I went from small to big was the amount of red tape around everything. Everything needs to be approved from quotes to PTO to conversations with specific customers. On top of that, you will notice a lot more internal meetings and sync calls. Most of them I found to be a waste of time and could have been an email.

You also wont have granular visibility into the product roadmap or other things that you might have been privy to at smaller companies. Everything is guarded tightly, even more so at Publically traded companies.

GDO

Politicker

0

BDM

I never worked for a small company. Thinking about doing it int he future.

And yes red tape is a huge issue everywhere I’ve been.

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

1

MDR

You also wont have granular visibility into the product roadmap or other things that you might have been privy to at smaller companies. Everything is guarded tightly, even more so at Publically traded companies.

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

1

ISR

A few things that weren't really shocking but were annoying when I went from small to big was the amount of red tape around everything

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

0

ISR

Agree with everything that Mooney said. I've gone both ways over the last few years and the biggest change for me was that the startup (fintech space) I worked for had a culture where if a large enough enterprise prospect asked for a new/additional feature to our solution, we would tell them that we "had it" and then rush to build it for them in the background within a 30-60 day timeframe.

Mr.Floaty

Politicker

0

BDR

Now if only I knew how to sew on a button...

Cyberjarre

Politicker

0

BDR

Invest in your luggage.I'm not talking about a money investment, I'm talking about a research investment.

User1234567

Politicker

-1

User1234567

sometimes this can be a good thing

DustFrog

Catalyst

1

Business Development Manager

..well yeah thats why I made the decision.

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