People often think that big businesses already know everything about the industry they’re in. However, that’s not the case. Small businesses are incredibly valuable in the knowledge and experience they bring to the table. They view problems in a different way because they have to operate on fewer resources than bigger businesses do. Here are some ways that big businesses can learn from smaller businesses.

Think of your business as a franchise

When small businesses are looking to expand, they often look to franchise it. While this won’t necessarily work for a large-scale business, there are still ways to innovate your business by thinking of it as a franchise. By innovating your thought processes through documenting and systematizing marketing as if you planned to put yourself in a new market, you could overall find new opportunities to innovate and streamline your business.

Culture is everything

Some big businesses–to no fault of their own–lose that key principle that their employees are the most valuable asset to their business. The structure and culture of your business are absolutely everything as you continue to grow. Looking towards small businesses in how they maintain that culture is essential, as small businesses scale in a more podlike structure, giving a more tailored approach to people management, and focusing more on a culture-driven productivity approach.

Execute Transactions Quickly

Smaller businesses don’t have the ability to move slow when passing a transaction through their business. They don’t have the sheer amount of departments that a transaction goes through in a big business. Small businesses are forced to respond quickly to the transactions that move through their company because the hierarchy of their company is on a smaller scale or practically nonexistent. They don’t have the roadblocks slowing their time, so rapid executions are vital.

Responding to Customer Feedback in a Timely Manner

Small businesses have the luxury of being able to be closer to their customers, but that doesn’t mean that larger-scale businesses can’t do the same. Making sure that your customers are happy seems like a no-brainer, but implementing something from a customer feedback survey can make customers feel important and heard. Unfortunately, the more people that you put in between the decision-maker and the customer leads to unsatisfied customers. By responding quickly to customer feedback and keeping the group of people close to the decision-makers in a small circle, you’ll raise both customer satisfaction as well as loyalty.

These are just a few of the many ways in which big businesses can learn from smaller ones.