Captain Obvious Says: Big Fish Like Other Big Fish

Think you’ve developed your Web 2.0 startup into a company capable of handling corporate accounts? Corporations don’t think so.

Forrester Research, the group consulted by default for almost anything to do with tech and business, ventured into the offices of more than 100 CIOs (Chief Information Officers) employed by companies with 500 staff or more and asked if they’d consider looking to the little guy for their blogging/podcasting/etc. needs if in fact there were competing options marketed by big-name software manufacturers available. The answer: Um, no.

Why not?

According to the results gathered together from the study by Forrester, CIOs of sizable companies don’t want to hedge their bets with vendors they’ve heard little or nothing about. Names like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP are safer than “smaller pure play firms like Socialtext, NewsGator, or Mindtouch.”

What Forrester advises to small Web 2.0 outfits that wish to snag large contracts with larger entities is to “partner with established firms.” If a buyout of the business doesn’t seem likely, or is in fact not the goal or desire of its owner(s), providing services in association with a larger software firm - as an affiliate, for example – is a better bet for making the lucrative ties sought.

It’s important to note, however, that the majority of officers polled also responded that the companies to which they belonged were in fact utilizing Web 2.0 technologies to help spread their brands, products, and services.

Forrester predicts that such coalitions will be made in the years to come. As the Web 2.0 industry matures and businesses fall into their respective grooves, it only makes sense that they secure deals with larger vendors to keep the revenue flowing and ensure that their businesses expand. If they don’t do so, others will, and that’s when the slow movers and stubborn stagnants lose clients, lose money, and eventually disappear.

If companies are maintaining strictly direct relations with the end user, and business-to-business arrangements aren’t made or kept to side-dish status, none of the above applies. And what’d’ya know? A great many of the companies and Web destinations covered here on Profy since our launch fit such a profile.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to profy RSS feed!