Multinational Corporations Vs. Small Companies

Exceptionally, some SCs have High Quality techies who were once MNC employees. Their presence could fetch some good amount of values to the SC employees.

Comparison of work in MNCs

I have worked in MNCs where we needed to do all these activities from end-to-end. Plus other MNCs where there is a specific Job Design like:

1. Business Analysts that capture Client Requirements
2. Database Designer that creates a database
3. UI developer that creates the front end
4. Backend developer the creates the backend wrapping code & services
5. Tester that tests the product
6. Deployment team that does the deployment >
7. Support team that works with the customer problems

This makes one thing that the SC employee is mightier than the MNC employee! Obviously this dialogue comes from your SC boss or manager. I had a different thought here.

First of all, the MNC Job Design focuses on increasing efficiency, aligning talents to technology and reducing employee turnover. Not all software engineers are experts in UI and Database. They might have different aspirations like one guy likes UI, the other guy likes database. In this way they can concentrate on their respective arena and probably do certifications and blog to build power over their core area.

So concentration on Core Technology is possible with MNCs. (Again, there is no guarantee that all MNC supports the same, but I can assure you that on average more MNCs support this than SCs.)

This is the reason we can see Database Administrator specialists, .Net specialists and Java specialists in larger companies. Plus MNCs can provide more exposure for these guys in different projects. Thus their core skills remain activated and explored.

Concentration is important: I can give my example from 2006, where I worked with Java, .Net, Delphi, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Visual C++; all in the same year. The result was I was a Jack of All Trades and King of Nothing. All the noteriety went to specific Technology Gods and I was undervalued compared to nearly half of them. (Interestingly, my pay was set using the lowest skill level, HTML :).)

So I suggest you concentrate on a specific technology depending on your passion. Concentration increases your value in the market plus more enjoyment at work up to a saturation level.

Standards and Methodologies

Obviously MNCs have better standards and methodologies. This is one of the reasons the MNC experience guy is given more weight age even in small companies.

For example, when i was a Delphi Programmer in year 2002 with a SC, I was using plain vanilla kind of development. It was something like writing SQL statements within the Windows Form events. I was not exposed to the Object Oriented way of development since my boss and Team Leads around were grown up in the same small company; they did not know the outside high quality standards and thus we were not able to gain a solid value in the market, even after years of experience.

But, working with good MNCs I gained a solid exposure to Object Oriented Programming, Design Patterns, Scrum, TDD, Agile Methodology, Continuous Integration etcetera. I can blindly say that a mere 2 year experience in such MNC is equivalent to the 10 year experience in a SC. (Exception: things will be the opposite if you land up in a support project in MNC.)

Myths about MNCs

While I was in small companies, I used to hear the following.

• In MNCs we must work 12 hours: This is true and false in MNC and SC. I had worked 12 hours, Saturday and Sunday too for a 20 employee SC, plus in a MNC too. It depends on the project situation and the greedy manager you get. In reality wherever people are working for 12 hours, in the long run, they produce only 6 hours of productivity. There will be bugs and improper decisions that will deplete the extra effort low-quality hours spent.
  
  My strategy as a manager was to focus 60% on development work and 40% on training and mentoring team members, plus identifying reusable components. This strategy reduced future development time through reuse of components and a happier, satisfied team.
  
  
• In a MNC, there is no value for family life: This is again a true and false statement. This can happen both with SC and MNC. If you encounter such a problem in any company, then you can quit the job for a better work-life balanced job. Chances are better that you will get a better job if you quit the MNC!
  
  
• In a MNC, there is a lot of politics: This is also true and false. In my career of 6 years with a SC and 6 years with a MNC, I saw cheap politics in both companies. There were spies who wanted to dominate others or gain an extra penny from management, they used to betray us; they exist in both SC and MNC. But the good news with a MNC is that "even the cheap guys will have a minimum standard". :)
  
  
• In a MNC, A job is secured: This is partially false. The MNCs are answerable to the investors. During recessions, employees with more bench times are terminated to cut cost. During those times, the so called sleeping-employees will feel the heat and start learning new technologies to allocate themselves in projects. But MNCs provide higher Job Security since the employee can find a new project within the company itself, in the case of the SC the employee will need to leave the company and search in the open job market. MNCs are certainly larger ships! The MNCs have highly experienced and strategic Financial Officers and Economy Predictors to strategically position themselves during tough times. This is the core reason that even after multiple recessions the MNCs remain, but small companies bail out.
  
  
• In a MNC, there is no growth: A Senior TCS friend of mine said this to me. In MNCs, they make sure you are not growing! When I closely examined the matter, the so-called sufferings occured due to support projects where learning opportunity is reduced. Usually, these projects are handled by less aggressive Software Engineers who are unwilling to learn. I would say things are again in the engineer's hand, they can use their spare time in learning and getting certifications, update their internal resume with new skills, then request their manager to change their project, get interviewed for another client and change. Nobody can stop you from progressing.
  
  

roblems with MNC

Since our friends indicated, the Bad Back Reference Kick out would be a big problem with MNC. So in order to get in, you need to have a clear past company, at least the immediate past one. The MNCs check for your past employer existence, your salary, your behavior. As I said already, they "Validate an employee from a non-validated source". What is the proof that your past employer is a truthfu? To get through such problems, people used to purchase employment histories and references from other small companies. A proper solution I have is to work for another small company, gain 6 month experience and apply to a MNC, here the immediate past company is a clear one and thus the problem is solved. (Checking the previous 10 year character of a person is of no use, the person might have changed in present :), so the immediate past is important)

I appreciate Shivanand's input "Nurturing a Laziness Culture in MNC". The MNCs have Bench time and many support projects, that provide very less opportunity for learning. In most cases the engineer ends up with a rusted set of neurons. It is true but depends on the person as well. I have seen people who feel secure enough in a MNC that spend their bench time on other non-career activities.

A deviation of thought would be: "The MNC did not force anybody to sit idle, the employee has a choice to use his free time" Very fewer people (< 5%) who are motivated about their career use their bench time in blogging, learning and contributing towards forums or at least moving up in life. According to them, the bench time provides ample opportunity for exercising their neurons and growing. (Helping is growth if you play in an uncharted area.)

In my case, my 6 months was idle waiting for VISA approval. I would say I utilized the time very well. I created 3 books in Design Patterns, Azure, SharePoint, wrote 200+ articles, gained 5000+ points over MSDN, gained a solid career in SharePoint, attained 3 MVP Awards as the result of the whole. To me, the 6 months provided the value of 5 years of my regular career.

Summary

Providing the qualities of a good company, whether small/big I would add:

1. Positive Work Environment
2. Good Learning Opportunities
3. Good Salary
4. Promising Future
5. Self Actualization Possibility

In short, if you are happy with your company whether SC or MNC, then continue there. If you have strong aspirations in Career Growth then you should choose your core technology area and focus on the paths ahead through MNCs.

Always see the source of advice. If you are being advised by your SC boss, chances are greater that he will draw a hectic picture about MNCs, because without you he is going to be troubled ahead. You can ask your boss: If there are more clients coming in then will you make this small company an MNC or not? Obviously they also want to grow. :) For growth, they will also introduce MNC standards into their small company.

Not all Small Companies are bad, not all MNCs are bad. But on average, MNCs are better than Small Companies. (KFC chicken can have trouble once in a blue moon, but food poison chances are higher in small hotels :))

MNCs are more financially secured and career-rewarding compared with your SCs unless your SC boss has many family-associated properties.

Most of the small companies have a passion to grow high, otherwise there is a chance that they might fail in the future due to big MNCs taking their chunk of the meat. So as a person seeking growth, your small company is also seeking growth, chances are high that if it succeeds, your small company can become an MNC.

Beginners: If you can do an MNC as part of a campus interview then that would be really great since you can leave the SC problems behind. If you landed up in a small company, then learning more and switching to a MNC would be a good idea.

In short, life is about service, the more service we do the more our soul is satisfied. If your existing company cannot provide a good platform for servicing or meritocracy fails then you should find the next best platform to service better.

Ultimately, I would say we should practice our core passion of life. It is only possible if we have Financial Freedom to do so. I would recommend, we should convert every problem to opportunities to grow further and attain financial freedom. At the point we can chase our passion or help back society.