THE OLD FRIENDSHIP: Physics & Business

Growing up, physics and economics were my favorite subjects and it's quite endearing and fascinating to see real-life use-cases and applications of the core fundamentals of Physics and Economics studied during our primary education, translating into business growth stories.

Do you know, there is an opposite and equally powerful term for ‘ Deja-Vu i.e. the sensation you get when you’re in a strange place or circumstance yet somehow feel as if you’ve “been there before.”

?The term is Vuja-De i.e. looking through the old situations, places & circumstances with a new perspective. New ideas and insights often come from looking at a similar situation in a different light.

Shifting from ‘Deja-Vu mindset to Vuja-De Mindset’ is a mindful hack & is quite transformative.

Let us see some of the core fundamentals of physics translating into business strategy & operations principles

1. The path of least resistance → Your MVP ( Minimal Viable Product / Business )

The principle talks about “ if you drop some water on any surface and it flows using the path affording it the least resistance. The drop is agnostic to the surface.” Essentially in mechanics, the drop is doing a simple process?

“ It surveys its surroundings, recognizes the first point of ingress, and pushes forward, repeating this process till it reaches its goal”?

Similarly, each business should strike a balance between “ Its MVP “ & “The perfection conundrum”. Businesses should remember the core problem they are solving and then try to build or compound it. For e.g. When Apple started with the iPod the core problem it was solving was thousands of tracks on the go. As the product strikes the right chord with its changing consumer's demands, the i-pod gets a screen and then finally merged it into an iPhone.

2. Laws of Velocity & Momentum → Snowball effect for Product/ Service Fit

Every industry & business goes through certain seismic shifts of trends & business maturity, where companies ride the momentum, towards the wave of new revenue models and profitability.

Now, if we simply understand 3 core concepts of physics i.e Velocity, Acceleration & Momentum

2.a) Velocity = Speed x Direction

While a lot of companies in the early stages choose speed ( burning cash to gain market share), their velocity will be nullified if there are moving in multiple directions. Hence, only companies with Velocity survives, not Speed. Here Velocity could be the Unique Value proposition for the company & speed could be faster Go-To-Market.

2.b) Acceleration = Force / Mass

The acceleration quotient for any organization depends upon the magnitude of Force i.e. how streamlined is an organization’s Demand(Sales &Marketing ) and Supply (Delivery & Support) functions. On the contrary, the denominator i.e. Mass refers to the lean operations.?

This is WHY companies like Unilever and P&G keep brands separate rather than having one giant parent brand because bigger the mass i.e. bigger the brand, it’s difficult to position it or create a new perception.

2.c) Momentum = Mass x Velocity

Momentum is a state of flow when an organization has coherence across its business functions and each business function achieves a certain velocity; a state when an organization achieves momentum on any/multiple metrics (users, revenue, retention, experience, etc.)?

This is the state when an Organization starts delivering VALUE at optimal cost/price, the 2 most important levers of business.

3) First & Second Law of Thermodynamics → Energy & Entropy

The first law states that while every system (Organization/s) has a finite amount of energy (resources) available at its disposal, incremental energy is always derived from its surroundings ( here in business context its the capital, talent, competitive advantage & partnership).

This plays an instrumental in today’s new-age companies that have their monetization mechanism linked to network effect & platform economy. (Amazon, Airbnb, Netflix and the list goes on…)

The second law around Entropy is a function of orderliness over time. Entropy is the process by which everything deteriorates over time. The higher an organization’s entropy, the more energy it requires to simply survive.

Physics and Business are truly intertwined and so are the core fundamentals that we learn in our prime but forget to correlate with our day-to-day experiences.

Applying a mindful shift ‘ Vuja-De’ and looking at the same things with a fresh lens and perspectives, can create magic and have transformative experiences.

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