The Uneven Race with the Big Four

When I realized what the big giants are actually doing, I came to the conclusion that it was time to rebuild my business, a Bulgarian entrepreneur shared. And what are the big ones actually doing?

Who Runs Faster

The four largest technology companies, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, are playing a more and more dominant role in this digitalizing world. They turned too fast into corporations that put their hands on our lives, our preferences, our ideas, and, like no one else before, they have the opportunity to keep an eye on us and set the rules we are to play by. Amazon has turned shopping into something fun and easy – a click with your mouse and... it is done. While users enjoy this convenience, Jeff Bezos has become the richest man in modern history. His wealth is also a result of the fact that he is entering niches for billions of dollars where he saw an appetizing prey hiding. The more clicks, the more money. The other technology giant Apple has become a symbol of prestige over the years. The company has turned its brand into a religion and sells at prices as a number one brand. Buy the latest product, you deserve to have the newest one! But the war for market territories and supremacy is getting more intense.

To Be the First

Facebook eats more and more time of more and more people around the world. The lives of many have moved into the social network, it has become a window through which users invite the world to peek into their private space. Google is the source of knowledge: Uncle Google knows everything. The search engine finds more and more comprehensive answers to more and more questions. And while the world is being entertained, it develops dependence on the largest. Well, if one of them makes mistakes or doesn’t take the right steps, it can give way to someone else, just as Apple replaced the previous technological giants and turned them into “aging ones.” For a company, competition is healthy only when its brand goes up and conquers new market niches, otherwise, it is deadly. It is a virtual game of numbers to observe, even on the media, how the wealth of the richest increases and how it drops with billions in just a few days. So, you should ask yourself what money is today and how it’s earned. The year didn’t start very well for Apple, which lost over 55 billion dollars in a few minutes after its shares dropped by 7.55%. But... Money is no longer what it used to be.

Who Is Next

The “Technological Foursome” enters the stage of a race for redeployment of territories. The competition is getting more intense and there are other candidates for the top row. Entering the Four means that someone has to be out. Each of these four companies has become a giant in their own way, the common thing is that all four have managed to make the world prefer their product or service, and a key point in this growth is access to cheap capital. But when you are on the front line, you will have to fight effectively with aging and losing relevance more and more.

While the big ones are struggling for supremacy, what are the small ones to do in a competition that can at least be called healthy? Are they to stay in the shadows, hoping that there will be something left for them, too, or to try to dive into the deep? Is there a ditch that is impossible to jump over if they compete on land?

New Horizon

A small company on a small market – how to enlarge its scale? If they are not free, male lions live longer. In nature, they most often die from their wounds after battles for power, and very rarely do they die from old age. The same is true of “healthy” competition in a global world where lions live in freedom. From the point of view of evolutionary psychology, all successful businesses exert an attractive influence on one of the three areas of the body – mind, heart, genitals, Scott Galloway wrote in his book “The Four”, which is already on our market. It will open for you a horizon beyond the cliché of what source of inspiration the technological giants are. But take a note – over the last ten years, the most important companies have become data experts – on its gathering, analysis and use. So, it is no accident that data is called the new gold in the era of information.

Who Are Numbers Talking to

There is a “Big Four” in audit, too: PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte check the papers of most of the world’s top-rated companies. What is more, they sell them consulting services and tax related activities. Over the years, there have been voices of disagreement with this overconcentration, demands for auditing and consulting services to separate, but nevertheless the audit services sector remains dominated by the Big Four and is moving forward in the digital world. The big ones are focusing on the most profitable segments and, at the same time, are hindering the emergence of new big audit companies. But for the one who dominates, it is in the nature of things. Technology will draw new dividing lines, which will be insurmountable for smaller companies. It turns out that only one of the Big Four until this year will have invested a billion dollars in cloud services. New technologies will raise their standards of work and will favour their growth, and the small ones will pick up the crumbs on the market.

The speed of change is growing. The processes and the main players who conduct it have to be carefully monitored. If you apply some of their strategies, you might speed up your business...