There was a time when scale decided everything. The biggest budgets won. The largest teams moved faster. The companies with the deepest pockets built the tallest walls, and smaller businesses learned to survive in their shadows, nimble, creative, but often constrained. Competing with enterprises felt like running a race where the finish line kept moving further away.
But something has shifted and things are changing. Not overnight, not even in a year, but certainly fast enough to make a difference. The advantage of size has begun to melt away using Artificial Intelligence. It is doing so not by making small businesses larger. It is doing much more than this, it is making them intelligent. And in the 21st century intelligence is more scalable than resources. No longer are small businesses constrained by a lack of resources, they can run with a stealth-like efficiency. The work of an entire team can be accomplished with smart software that runs in the background.
No longer are marketing, customer service, operations and analytics the exclusive preserve of the big enterprise. They are now affordable and flexible – increasingly even automated. The level playing field is not a flat field but it isn’t as tilted. How we make decisions, for instance. Large organisations have checks and balances, and people. This provides organisation, but can be cumbersome. But small enterprises have always been fast, but did not have insights and tools to make better decisions. That’s where AI comes in. Now, a few people can get access to the insights of enterprise analytics. You can see how customers are behaving, and predict future behaviours.
Campaigns can be fine-tuned on-the-fly. Insight can be derived even before trends are evident. Insight is no longer merely reliant on intuition, but combines with insight that is constantly learning. Velocity, in combination with intelligence, is a powerful combination. And the matter of execution. Execution used to take manpower. Growth meant hiring. Growth meant an increase in complexity. With every opportunity came a price – not just a monetary price, but a time price, as well. AI changes that equation. Routine tasks, the subtle, but sorely time-consuming, processes that we all go through each day – are now automated. Emails are prioritized and replied to. Inquiries from customers are responded to. Inventories are automatically tracked. Bookkeeping records and accounts are automatically tracked.
An entrepreneur who used to be a jack (or jill) of all trades finds these trades now supported by smart technology. It’s not freedom from work, but freedom to work. What was once spent on the minutiae of running a business, is now freed up. Building relationships. Refining products. Exploring new ideas. Knowing how to react, rather than react. And here, small businesses find the truth that can be elusive to enterprises, authenticity. The use of AI doesn’t eliminate, it enhances. Large enterprises might use their size to connect with customers, but small businesses can use AI to connect with customers on a more personal level. No longer are customers just a number, they are a person. Their needs, wants and behaviours are used to communicate with them. A message is timely, not “spammy”.
A message is relevant, not generic. Loyalty is fostered by this kind of relationship, that is impossible with mass communication. And there’s a change in creativity. Until recently, creativity – in marketing, branding, content, and other types of communication – took time and talent, often external talent. Small businesses had to prioritise the most important areas for investment, and were often constrained in their creativity. With AI, that’s no longer the case. It’s now possible to create, edit and update content. Testing ideas can be done inexpensively. Testing can be done in real-time. What used to be weeks, is now hours. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t creative, just that it is more creative. It enables small businesses to experiment, to experiment again, and again – without the risk of failure. And in the world of competition speed and innovation can be as important as size. But, perhaps more importantly, what AI does is it allows small businesses to do more. It enables small businesses to “think big”.
Not to become big businesses, but in what they can do. The constraints don’t seem so limiting. What once was impossible, becomes possible and even viable. A small business can have a worldwide presence. An enterprise can be run by a few. An upstart can provide experiences on par with the best. All this without adding any additional work, but just stretching and focusing. Of course, this doesn’t mean that, in adopting AI, the company should adopt technology for its own sake. It requires clarity. Knowing what in the business is routine, what is inefficient and how technology can complement not hinder the workflow. The idea is not to be replaced – it is to be empowered. When small businesses embrace AI, it is not simply operational efficiencies that are achieved.
They are strategic shifts. The business starts to dance more gracefully – it’s more agile, smarter, stronger. It’s all somehow so beautiful. Small businesses have long been successful at making the most of what they have. On making the most of scarce resources. On overcoming challenges to compete in a world more often suited to the big and the less nimble. AI does not mean that, it enables it. It provides the creativity of small businesses with the means to grow, to develop and to play on a larger field.
So, a shift in narrative. It is no longer small vs big. It is about dumb versus smart. Rigid versus adaptive. Manual versus automated. No longer is the power in the environment possessed by the largest, richest players, but in the hands of those who can make best use of it. Small businesses, with their agility, flexibility and responsiveness, stand a good chance of succeeding in this transition. AI just provides them with the leverage that they’ve been missing. Not to become bigger. But to become Underdog.
