SMB vs Enterprise
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For reference, we tend to use the Fortune 1000 as a handy rule of thumb as to "what is enterprise", but it is hardly a hard and fast rule. These terms are always loose. Some companies act enterprise with 2,000 employees, some act small with 30,000 but there are trends. If you are an average company then the number of employees, needed skills and stock revenue of the F1000 tends to make you behave a certain way. But if you have loads of employees and not revenue, or vice versa weird things might happen if you use any one item as a guide.
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I've worked for both and haven't really noticed a difference. An enterpirse is generally broken up into much smaller semi-autonomous units that often operate similar to an SMB anyway.
Generally the biggest influence is your boss. If your boss is an asshole, it doesn't matter so much if he's an enterprise asshole or an SMB asshole.
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And for "most" people, in my experience anyway, SMB is 10-2,000 people plus behaviour. But IBM considered 500 the bottom of the SMB and 10,000 the top end (making IBM feel that Dash's experience was middle of the road SMB, not even SME.) SOHO is pretty broadly considered 1-10 people.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I've worked for both and haven't really noticed a difference. An enterpirse is generally broken up into much smaller semi-autonomous units that often operate similar to an SMB anyway.
I worked at one that broke things up like this, but they didn't feel or behave like SMBs at all. They were broken up to SMB size with maybe 200 - 500 employees per department. But still acted very enterprise, felt nothing like an SMB except for the communications domains.
All the other enterprises I've worked for didn't do that. I know some do. But at least in the US I think it is the less common approach. Especially with services like IT spanning many departments even if they are broken up otherwise (but not the one in my first case.)
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@scottalanmiller do you think it's easier to transition to a management role in SMB?
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@scottalanmiller do you think it's easier to transition to a management role in SMB?
SMB management is pretty tame. I think it's much lower key, normally, especially as even CEO positions in an SMB tend to be quite junior to even entry level management in an enterprise.
SMB does have the challenges of little mentorship or established procedure. And more unknowns.
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I've only worked SMB. I'd like to try Enterprise some day but worry everything would be too impersonal. With SMB, some of them have been like a family. Real nice. I've worked some that were truly nasty though - I'd go SMB, but move until the right SMB is found.
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I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
I also like to be able to take charge and leave the parts that need specialists, to specialists.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
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I've lost count of how many specialists there are who are having a harder time finding work than the generalists.
20+ years doing absolutely nothing but Microsoft Exchange? In a world of Office 365 and Google Apps, your options are limited.
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@matteo-nunziati said in SMB vs Enterprise:
never been in enterprise. always in envs with <=50 people - these includes warehouse guys.
On the other side in these 2 years I've literally built their infrastructure, from wiring the company with fiber up to introducing virtualization, backups, standardized printing (no more 15 different printers from 100 vendors) and so... now switching ERP (PITA MAXIMUM!). I've written a couple of web apps. So basically I've been a 360° IT kid, from engineering to fixing printers
I share an experience similar to yours, luckily just the good part :)!
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
Agree, that's what I do!
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@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
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@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
As Scott said - the biggest company that I personally worked at wasn't F1000 at the time, So we definitely didn't see that level of separation in Windows admin roles, or any other system. Our AIX team was 2 people for over 100 servers (I wasn't that involved, it could have been over 500 for all I know), and they handled everything on those boxes, setup, tear down, building storage LUNs, etc. But I definitely considered them AIX specialists. They didn't touch the network side of things other than plugging an IP address into their systems.
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@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
As Scott said - the biggest company that I personally worked at wasn't F1000 at the time, So we definitely didn't see that level of separation in Windows admin roles, or any other system. Our AIX team was 2 people for over 100 servers (I wasn't that involved, it could have been over 500 for all I know), and they handled everything on those boxes, setup, tear down, building storage LUNs, etc. But I definitely considered them AIX specialists. They didn't touch the network side of things other than plugging an IP address into their systems.
AIX is so reliable, you could probably get away with zero! lol.
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@Breffni-Potter said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I've lost count of how many specialists there are who are having a harder time finding work than the generalists.
20+ years doing absolutely nothing but Microsoft Exchange? In a world of Office 365 and Google Apps, your options are limited.
Absolutely. Of course vendor agnostic specialists are usually in better shape. However, even vendor agnostic specializations like cyber security that have a high demand in enterprise may not have many SMB options. As SMB needs to have a generalist. All in all, there are more generalist jobs available.
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@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
Yeah, I am not sure what you were expecting? I am just using a very broad role (windows admin) as an example of how many sub specialist roles you might see in enterprise. I am pretty sure I missed some
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@Dashrender said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@IRJ said in SMB vs Enterprise:
@Jimmy9008 said in SMB vs Enterprise:
I'm a generalist too; I don't think that puts me at a disadvantage compared to specialists. Where many specialists would get caught up on a project, I have a range of experience which will get me past that problem.
That is a key point. In enterprise, you take a very small amount of responsibility for specific functions vs doing everything across the board. It's both good and bad, but at the end of the day you'll learn more if you have to do everything. Although you may not master a specific area.
Do you have an example of a specialist role? I'd like to see how they compare to a generalist role...
There are so many examples. Let's just take a look at a windows server admin. There is a team for handling group policy, several builds, server patching, server OS troubleshooting, application support for specific applications (these are the guys troubleshooting with the vendors), package deployment, and more.
You probably do alot more than sever admin in SMB. You're evaluating products, talking vendors, deploying actual physical hardware like racks and servers, configuring network equipment, and many more roles that aren't windows admin related.
I see what you mean, but never assumed that to be specialist.
What did you assume them to be?
As Scott said - the biggest company that I personally worked at wasn't F1000 at the time, So we definitely didn't see that level of separation in Windows admin roles, or any other system. Our AIX team was 2 people for over 100 servers (I wasn't that involved, it could have been over 500 for all I know), and they handled everything on those boxes, setup, tear down, building storage LUNs, etc. But I definitely considered them AIX specialists. They didn't touch the network side of things other than plugging an IP address into their systems.
GPO... Building Servers... Patching... I see these as pretty simple things as a generalist. I cant imagine a team of people needed for any particular one of those just to focus on that one thing (Mind, I've not worked enterprise). Those people would surely do a range of tasks, not just GPO all day. To say - 'I'm a specialist in GPOs' sounds like a really limited job. Even with 1000 servers or workstations or more. It would be boring, and GPOs is mostly easy (for example). Especially once you have setup a test environment.
I always assumed specialist = totally difficult task, hence being a great skill. Not specialist = I just do GPO only all day in a team of people doing GPO all day, but cant do anything else like patching as I don't know (limiting).
Its like a builder. I can hire a builder to build me an extension. Many builders can build me that extension. When the builder finds asbestos stopping the work, they call in specialists to clear it out who have skills and knowledge, and the equipment, to deal with the dangerous material (the difficult, skilled part) an average generalist builder wouldn't have.
I'm not sure, probably wrong. Juts haven't worked in that environment.
