“Wing Theory” for Business
…so I was sitting around the other night, thinking about how business navigates the marketplace…and how the market may or may not actually respond as much like a fluid as many market professionals would like to believe. If it were a fluid…[insert idea].
It occurred to me that Bernoulli’s principle is simply a scientific statement of how fluid reacts (pressure, speed, distance)…and that science is applied with great success for many innovations (not the least of which is an airplane wing). There you have it:
WING THEORY for Business (TM) – utilizing Bernoulli’s principle as a creative basis to determine strategic modeling for business, where the market is a fluid. Designing to gain altitude/distance or less pressure in business as a result of an efficient design.
I decided to diagram my thoughts as it relates to “altitude” in business. A wing is for flight, right? Let’s give your business wings.
I’ve attached a PDF for the curious and included preview images.
Bernoulli For Business (“Wing Theory” pdf)
In short – the innovative element of modeling a business in this manner is that it places a hierachy on management, while also labeling (and illustrating) the most important component of a busines (the “high spot”). That “most important thing” is different in EVERY company (something that conventional business modeling doesn’t allow for as efficiently in visual depictions).
The tallest column in the structure of a wing determines both the radius of the wing and the potential for “lift”. It illustrates a requirement for all the supporting/surrounding elements – what relevance they play in giving a business the shape necessary for strategic “lift”. Weaknesses in a business model are more visually identifiable as well.
There is way more to it than that, but this 4 page illustration very clearly communicates the broad strokes of adapting conventional business designs, while treating the 21st century marketplace as it should be interpreted (a fluid that can be navigated with the right design).
It isn’t science as much as it is a really just a clever/visual analogy. In any case, this depiction allows for the most simplistic illustration of three simultaneous components (all of which are sometimes difficult to communicate on their own, let alone together):
- linear hierarchy (business processes)
- business philosophy (brand & market focus)
- management strategy (strengths are strengths)
Enjoy,
Mark
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May 17th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Note: This isn’t “Passive Marketing” as I’ve described it in the past. This is just one recent idea about thinking of business as a vessel in a three dimensional space (the market). In comparison, one could say that most strategists look at the market as electricity (trying to tap into it) instead of a fluid that is navigated. That’s all.
My favorite part of this illustration is how small the “effort window” is in a down-turning economy (and what it means for already established companies who have the foresight to inject a little effort).
In my opinion, the least amount of effort (for the greatest gain of altitude) exists in the real estate market and intellectual property genre…both of which can be exploited by nearly any business (turning a necessary sense of “survival” in this market into “gains”).
So two things come out of this little exercise:
1. Building a business around a core “high spot” (the most important feature of a businesses ability to overcome resistance) and,
2. Knowing where the effort window is…
You can be sure I’ll be applying this concept with more frequency, now that it has smacked me in the face with such simplistic visual representation.