Let nature inspire business innovation

Biomimicry

The recognition that organizations are living systems is an important step toward the realisation that nature can be a source of inspiration for business innovation.

The term biomimicry has been a popular catchphrase for the past few decades. The best-known examples come from engineering, where novel products have been developed by copying what nature has already evolved. An example is shark skin, which is covered in minute, ridged denticles that keep bacteria from settling. By copying this natural design, medical engineers have developed Sharklet™, a surface structure used to prevent bacteria from growing on the inside of catheters and other medical tubing.

Be bio-inspired

Nonetheless, copying nature only gets us so far, says ecologist Rafe Sagarin of the University of Arizona. Sagarin argues that instead of simply copying, we should incorporate the processes of natural systems – especially in the way we organise business. If we can use ecological knowledge in creating networks of businesses that are as dynamic and resilient as ecosystems in nature, we may be able to keep riding the waves of change that are hitting our society and our economy at an ever faster pace.

Business ecosystems

In a biological ecosystem, each ‘node’ in the network is a species. Energy flows upwards: the plants produce biomass using the sun’s light. The energy contained in plants flows up to plant-feeding animals, and then to their predators. Within each level, there is competition: for example, all plants are struggling for access to the same resource – sunlight.

Can we really view a business ecosystem as having the same properties as an ecosystem made from plants and animals? On the one hand, we can. In a business ecosystem, energy is value, which is used to keep each ‘node’ running, but part of it also flows to the next node in the system. Like animal and plant species, businesses compete, but they also need each other.

On the other hand, there are also differences. Evolution cannot look ahead. This means that today’s ecosystem is shaped by the past, not by any forecast of the future. Human enterprises have the ability to predict and plan, to watch trends and accommodate those in the plans for the next few years.

Still, in today’s world, change comes so quickly, and feedback loops are so complex and their effects so unpredictable, that precise planning and forecasting in business networks is of little relevance. In other words, we could do worse than look at natural ecosystems for inspiration.

Metaphorical power

Speaking of networks of companies as ‘business ecosystems’ is more than just a metaphor. Ecologists have discovered factors that determine an ecosystem’s stability and productivity. In a biomimicry approach, we can incorporate those factors into ecosystems of business. Several biologists, such as the above-mentioned Rafe Sagarin, but also palaeontologist Geerat Vermeij of the University of California, have highlighted four factors we should pay attention to.

Decentralization

Many of the most successful species do not have central control. This sounds like anarchy, but it is far from it. An ant’s nest, for example, has a beautifully efficient structure without any central control. Each ant has a simple set of rules and from this emerges the illusion of a perfectly governed society. 

A decentralized system can respond to threats more quickly. Witness the success of Wikipedia (without any central control) versus the traditionally published Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Redundancy

Having multiple identical parts is the success of many animals and plants. This may smack of wastefulness, but the effect is actually efficiency. Consider tropical rainforests, which can contain as many as a thousand different tree species per square kilometre. Trees basically all do the same, namely photosynthesize. Still, the redundancy helps to stabilize the forest, because if one tree species goes extinct, another takes over. From the world of business, we have examples like Southwest Airlines, which has chosen to use the same jetliner model (Boeing 737) for its entire fleet (700 planes) – a clever strategy to streamline all operations.

Learn or evolve

In nature, there is no past or future. There is only the present. Given today’s environment, an organism needs to survive and spread its genes. This means that the ones best adapted to today’s demands, whether by nature (genes) or nurture (ability to learn), are the ones that will be successful. In the city of Albi, France, catfish have learned to catch pigeons that come to the river’s edge to drink. Catfish are not supposed to do this: they evolved to catch worms and snails in the muddy bottoms of lakes. But tradition plays no role in ecology. Some catfish discovered they were able to catch pigeons by jumping onto the riverbank and the habit spread because of its success. 

As Rafe Sagarin says: “Forget your faults; learn from your successes instead.”

Collaborate

In a dynamic ecosystem, opportunities may appear unexpectedly. The carnivorous pitcher plant Nepenthes, for example, has evolved to catch insects in its deadly pitcher. But, paradoxically, it also helps insects: it has hollow spaces in its stems in which a species of ant builds its nests. These ants fish out insects that are too large for the plant to digest. They break these into pieces, keep some for themselves and drop the rest back into the pitcher where they are small enough to be digested. Thus, an insect-killing plant has begun a successful collaboration with an insect, simply because the opportunity was there for both to benefit.

What business can learn from nature

Ecosystems in nature are often stable and productive because they are dynamic: the wiki-like nature of species and their redundancies allow them to evolve quickly whenever an opportunity (or a threat arises). They laugh in the face of tradition. Business ecosystems probably will be most successful if they adopt a similar philosophy.