Big companies shouldn’t sell themselves short when it comes to innovating.

It’s become routine to assume that startups and smaller companies have an easier time developing innovative products and services than larger competitors, who are burdened by legacy infrastructure, bureaucratic processes and burdensome regulation. But large companies possess advantages over their smaller competitors, according to industry experts, if they can overcome internal challenges and leverage them.

Startups often focus on one idea, and if that idea fails, as most do, they have to start all over. But in terms of innovation, it’s best to have several ideas progressing simultaneously and to see which will succeed and which should be abandoned, said Alex Kazaks, head of innovation practice at McKinsey & Co. and a professor at Stanford’s Institute of Design.”The most successful innovators have a portfolio they’re culling,” Kazaks said.  Large companies sometimes focus too much on one product or process and end up with an “innovation tunnel instead of an innovation funnel,” Kazaks said. Companies should keep a better balanced portfolio of projects to distribute risk. Startups, by contrast, generally do just one thing. If that idea fails, they have to start all over — and most ideas do fail.

Big companies also have several things that startups usually cannot leverage: money, a known brand and a customer base. “The insights from a large customer base are stronger than a small customer base,” said Edward Niestat, managing director of Alix Partners.

Brad Jones, head of retail banking solutions at Equifax, echoed this sentiment. Equifax is facing increasing competition from smaller lenders looking to gain customers in the subprime space. But in a data-driven business, more is more, and Equifax has more data, “That’s our differentiator Jones said. “We have more consumer sources of data. Our database has 300 million tradelines. The little guys — they’re dealing with a very narrow scope.” Equifax’s data and methods are also compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act or FCRA, while many smaller lenders may not be, he said.

Similarly, many banking startups may develop their products without worrying about compliance, but if they want to bring financial services to consumers, regulators will come knocking sooner or later to determine whether the startup’s service is legit. The bigger players are already regulated and develop their solutions with that in mind.

There’s no question that smaller players have great ideas, but that doesn’t mean the big guys should only look to them for ideas. There are plenty of advantages that come from being large, if only the big players will leverage them properly.