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SMALL GIANTS Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big By Bo Burlingham; Penguin Group, New York, USA., 2005 Everybody has virtually dreamt of their industry. These Small About the Author/s: becoming big. People have Giants, as what he dubbed them, literally romanticized expanding are the author's pragmatic way of their turfs, intensifying their aims, convincing and inspiring the I joined Inc. in January 1983 as a and ultimately multiplying their rather peewee firms that senior editor and chocks of cash, thinking that they excellence must not be dictated became executive will get better when they're merely by size. It is about editor six months “bigger.” In the realm of business, touching lives and making a later, a position I the same circumstances are difference, no matter how far, no held for the next witnessed. Companies (or their matter how small, no matter how seven years or so. proprietors, for that matter) are little. In 1990, I resigned and became beguiled by the purported read the summary editor-at-large for a number of wonders that go with their reasons, including my desire to g o b a c k t o w r i t i n g . I impulsive--but most of the time subsequently wrote two books miscalculated--sizing up. In this with Jack Stack, the co-founder light and poignant volume, Bo and CEO of Springfield Burlingham demonstrates that Remanufacturing Corp. and the this is not always the case: being p i o n e e r o f o p e n - b o o k big does not automatically entail management. One of the books, being great. The Great Game of Business (Doubleday/Currency, 1992), Bo Burlingham brings to fore has sold more than 300,000 copies. companies which have opted to stay relatively small yet in their modest niches staggeringly became even more lucrative and for author info remarkable compared to others in Inside This Book Summary: Ÿ The Big Idea Ÿ A Final Word: Small is the New Ÿ Since When Did Giants Become Big Small? Ÿ Pointing Out the Difference Ÿ Naissance: The Making of Potential Davids Published by BusinessSummaries, 3001-91, 11010 NW 30th St., Suite 104, Miami, Florida 33172 ©2007 BusinessSummaries All rights reserved. No part of this summary may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior notice of BusinessSummaries.com. BusinessSummaries.com Since When Did Giants Become Small? other corporate Goliaths have. Yes, this may be extremely antithetical. Champions of logic would probably snuff us right off the bat for our seemingly unsound coinage of the term, small giants. Quite Pointing Out the Difference interestingly, though, the term is replete with a Perhaps the first few questions that would more profound meaning that only an earnest come to the readers' minds are, “How are these reader could grasp. It is actually read more with so-called small giants set apart from common and from the heart instead of the quizzical mind. businesses? Is there anything extraordinary or unique to the way they operate?” The author Small giants are firms or establishments who answers these positively by providing concrete do business disinterestedly, without an examples of firms who have simply moved exaggerated desire for revenue growth or beyond the itch for going public and becoming locational expansion. What they do may not big, and instead focused on how they could even be called a business, in the deeper sense superbly manage the business under their of the word. It was a lifestyle. A mindset. A noses and the communities right at their dream breathed into reality by sincere struggle. fingertips. These are firms that flouted the long- Their paramount goal is not only to amass entrenched corporate mantra that chronically earnings and obtain a good return on their possesses the tag, “Be bold. Be big. Be the investments. Theirs is the more noble cause of best.” maintaining first-rate customer service, establishing rapport with their suppliers, To exemplify his case, the author enumerated creating a workplace where people feel safe fourteen (14) companies, which, by now, have and appreciated and where the Work Ethic is proven their stints as small giants. These imbibed, and lastly, building communities include: through their corporate social responsibility. 1. Anchor Brewing, San Francisco, the original American microbrewery With these, small giants have intrepidly defied 2. CitiStorage Inc., Brooklyn, New York, the denotation of size. They are labeled “small” the premier independent records-storage for the sole reason that they managed to ward business in the US off excessive expansion and are “undersized” 3. Clif Bar & Co., Berkeley, California, in terms of the number of employees, yet they which popularized natural and organic are real giants in their own right. For they energy bars soared higher and achieved far more than what 4. ECCO, Boise, Idaho, the leading manufacturer of backup alarms and amber warning lights for commercial vehicles 5. Hammerhead Productions, Studio About the Book: City, California, a supplier of computer- generated special effects to the motion picture industry which slotted in an academy award for the movie, Babe 6. O.C. Tanner Co., Salt Lake City, Utah, Author: Bo Burlingham the preeminent employee recognition and Publisher: Penguin Group service awards company Date of Publication: 2005 7. Reell Precision Manufacturing, St. ISBN: 978-1-59184-149-4 P a u l , M i n n e s o t a , d e s i g n e r a n d Number of Pages: 232 pages manufacturer of motion-controlled products Small Giants by Bo Burlingham 2 of 7 BusinessSummaries.com 8. Rhythm and Hues Studios, Los communities through symbiotic relationships Angeles, a producer of computer- with their clients, suppliers, and their own generated animation and visual effects personnel. 9. Righteous Babe Records, Buffalo, New York, the fêted records company established by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco 10. Selima, Inc., Miami Beach, Florida, taking pride in fashion design and Naissance: The Making of Potential Davids dressmaking for a select clientele The feisty encounter between the stalwart and 11. The Goltz Group, Chicago, Illinois, hefty Goliath and the almost pocket-sized David including Artists' Frame service, probably has never failed to amaze us and prompt us to the country's best-known autonomously ask, “How did the little one prevail?” David is the owned framing business spanking metaphor for our small giants and the 12. Union Square Hospitality Group, New magnificent possibilities they continue to hatch. In York, New York, the restaurant chain of the today's business, a good number of Davids have acclaimed restaurateur, Danny Meyer started figuring in so well and changing the face of 13. W.L. Butler Construction, Inc., industry leadership. Some have begun fruitfully, Redwood City, California, a general tripped in the middle, and finally got back on their contracting firm specializing in commercial feet. Some have been on the verge of extinction, projects then completely metamorphosed and witnessed 14. Z i n g e r m a n ' s C o m m u n i t y o f another heyday. Some have probably kept their Businesses, Ann Arbor, Michigan, from clover leafs and taken the industry by storm just as where the world-renowned Zingerman's easily. Delicatessen hails and 7 other food-related establishments Whichever way, emerging as a small giant in the presence of gung-ho rivals is neither a plain streak Though by no means an exhaustive list, the of luck nor an overnight phenomenon. It is an author selected these firms based on three arduous process; a personal experience wrought most important decisive factors: with a bulk of sacrifice, a handful of knotty options, a mound of decent character, and a stack of guts Ÿ Their ability to remain robustly private or the size of Jupiter. Thus, the author's approach managed by a single or relatively few does not simply confirm what a small giant does: it number of people despite the pressures of is actually about becoming one. growth (go public) and geographical expansion; In this account, the author traces the varied trajectories that each company embarked on Ÿ Their exceptional craft and inimitable before being conferred the title, small giant. know-how, their own trademark or Through the pages of the book, the author packed personal signature, their distinctive way of in each company's genuine experiencefrom being conducting business that is feverishly in the fringes to being in the coreas if he were lauded, emulated (and envied) by other bringing them to life. Indeed, the small giants have firms in their industry; and lastly recently introduced an upturn in corporate thinking, which, even in the days to come, is Ÿ Their corporate social responsibility that certainly far from tapering off… enabled them to pursue non-financial priorities and rather engage in building Small Giants by Bo Burlingham 3 of 7 BusinessSummaries.com 1. Make the Right Choice: Be Small, Be it off, that they never had to sacrifice the “soul” of Indestructible their business, and that they can be the best even After quite a few years that the business is in full if they are not the biggest. The key is to put up a swing, managers or CEOs feel that inexorable keen eye for discernment before daring the rush to move even further and soar even impossible. higherand why not? Successful companies (expectedly) push themselves harder as they get into the “high” of that winning feeling that 2. “Own Your Ownership” As Much As consumes down to their ranks. There is certainly Possible no step backward, only a step ahead.