Bioinspired Strategic Design is now available to pre-order on Amazon.com.
Organizations are commonly thrust into hostile operating environments where they are required to make strategic decisions that involve significant and costly tradeoffs. Such hostile environments may be endemic such as an economic recession or idiosyncratic such as a predatory action by an adversary. Many features of such hostile environments parallel those of living organisms that also demonstrate fine-tuned strategies to improve their survivability under adverse conditions. How can organizations use these “bioinspired strategies” to survive, and even potentially innovate?
This book shows that the same three capabilities essential for the survival of living organisms in harsh environments –- efficiency, resilience, and prominence -- are also critical for organizations in their process of navigating through their own hostile environments. Throughout the book, the authors provide organizational executives with a systematic framework for thinking about strategic decision-making in a hostile environment leaning on analysis of real-world cases to draw out ontologies and methods for guiding their teams through disruptions, change management, innovation, and process improvements.
In the first part, organizations are provided with a systematic approach to analyzing three survivability influences – forces, resources, and observers and their interrelationships. While all three influences are active across all organisms (and organizations), the exact nature of their interrelationship and the significance of each influence are unique to every organism (or organization). The framework helps organizations nail down the specific features of their operating environment that can help or hinder survivability by analyzing the three influences. Organizations can respond to external influences by developing three-pronged capabilities – efficiency, resilience, and prominence (ERP), that respond to the three survivability influences. Organizations often struggle with identifying the appropriate strategies to apply under different conditions. Fortunately, nature provides several mechanisms that can be analogically applied to guide business strategies.
The book contains many illustrations and examples of strategic principles observed among living organisms that can help an organization develop ERP capability. Finally, the book introduces seven strategic design heuristics – Combination, Elimination, Separation, Segmentation, Replication, Dynamics, and Maximization observed in a living system that can be flexibly utilized to generate ideas to achieve strategic ends.
Bioinspired Strategic Design is not just another business book. Using principles from biology and AI it takes a fresh and innovative look at how these tools can create innovative products and help plan and build more efficient and resilient organizations.
As a CEO in supply chain visibility and resilience, I highly recommend 'Bioinspired Strategic Design.' This book offers valuable insights and practical guidance for organizations looking to enhance their strategic decision-making and build resilient operations.
As life in nature adapts to changing circumstances in order to survive, so too can businesses, organizations, and individuals learn to not only survive but to thrive through the principles of bioinspiration deduced and illuminated by the authors of Bioinspired Strategic Design. They show how you can apply the wellsprings of creation to methodically explore and creatively design innovative, robust, and resilient solutions to problems that, in the end, will further human flourishing.
As life in nature adapts to changing circumstances in order to survive, so too can businesses, organizations, and individuals learn to not only survive but to thrive through the principles of bioinspiration deduced and illuminated by the authors of Bioinspired Strategic Design. They show how you can apply the wellsprings of creation to methodically explore and creatively design innovative, robust, and resilient solutions to problems that, in the end, will further human flourishing.
How to get creative ideas is the holy grail for companies. In this amazing and innovative book, Drs. Finkenstadt and Eapen argue that nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. But how to leverage nature? Packed with practical examples and end-of-chapter exercises, Bioinspired Strategic Design shows the way. A must-read for anybody in search of creative inspiration! And who isn’t?
This book is an absolute gem! As natural, analogical thinkers we have much to learn from nature when curious enough to do so. The authors’ pioneering explorations involving biomimicry are a must-read for any manager. It is bold, panoramic thinking at its best and a highly enjoyable read as well.
In today's world, where sustainability plays a vital strategic role, nature presents a treasure trove of lessons for the inquisitive learner. This captivating book extends an invitation to explore and implement the simple yet profound principles observed in nature for both survival and success.
This book provides in-depth insights into how bioinspired design combined with AI can help us address complex challenges faced by businesses, governments, markets, cities, and society. Never more needed and very timely, an extremely valuable read for anyone involved in making strategic design decisions for organizations.
Mankind has not yet even skimmed the surface of the natural world’s multiple capabilities and ability to adapt. So many living things have innate capabilities that technology has yet to even understand, let alone replicate. Dan and Tojin have taken on the task of beginning to harness the principles found in nature and applying them to the design of human systems, in the context of efficiency, resilience, prominence, and design heuristics. This ambitious book seeks to develop critical implications of biomimicry for technological innovation, artificial intelligence, idea generation, scenario planning, and organizational constraints. The result is a delightful book that triggers one’s imagination on the possibilities for true nature-driven innovation.
Organizations around the world are primarily concerned with efficiency improvement. The authors of this book propose that there are two other critical survivability factors – resilience, and prominence, that firms may ignore to their peril. What makes survivability challenging is the complex interplay of these factors based on resources, environmental forces, and different types of observers such as predators, prey, and mates in the natural world, and competitors, rivals, and customers in business environments. A must-read for corporate honchos and emerging leaders alike!