“Once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there. In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.”

(quote from Thomas Watson, as related in The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber)

Thomas Watson was CEO of IBM during a time in which IBM grew from $9 million to $900 million in revenues. While IBM was still a relatively small company, Watson was laying the groundwork for the company’s growth. He recognized that, if IBM were ever to become a large company, it had to begin acting like a large company first.

One of the great strategic advantages that large companies have over most of their smaller competitors is having better management information to make their decisions with. You can narrow that strategic advantage, and gain a competitive advantage over your smaller competitors, by having an effective and efficient management information system in place.