Business expansion: A sophisticated 3-cushion billiard game


Business expansion requires necessarily “going beyond” the boundaries of an activity. But in fact, no one can truly go beyond his boundaries. It is like expecting someone to be able to jump over her/his own shadow.

What people can do is expand the boundaries based on introducing additional added value to deliver to the environment.

But as the value that pretends to be delivered is such only if it is perceived and accepted by the “beneficiary”, it is necessary to have the necessary critical mass to make a perceivable and acceptable value proposition.

If you are not aware of the 3-cushion billiard game, we suggest watching this short video.

The business expansion process is homologous to the 3-cushion billiard game with one subtle difference. It requires that the 3-cushions have been included before the goal can be achieved. These cushions are:

Expansion of Boundaries

1)      A gravitational force

2)      A catalyst

3)      A commercial driver

The integration of these three elements allows the development of a strategy to expand boundaries.

These elements need to be included in the business strategy beginning with the existence of a gravitational force or object. After the gravitational force is included, there has to be a catalyst that accelerates the process and avoids it be inhibited by the conditions of the environment.

Finally, the expansion needs to be driven by commercial drivers in order to make it become true.

It has to be considered that these three elements are by definition dynamic, ambiguous, and fuzzy which makes them very difficult to grasp, design and integrate.

As you have seen in the 3-cushion billiard, this discipline requires extreme precision, which demands extreme preparation. The same happens with business expansions, which demand that the gravitational force and the catalyst exist before the value propositions are made. This is what we call the preparation.

Having the necessary timing to make the process work as a critical mass requires having a high level of objectiveness, knowledge of the functionality and an extreme focus.

This is only possible if the concept of the business is managed and the solution is envisioned. It requires believing in order to be able to see. People who need to see in order to believe cannot expand businesses.

This explains why more than 80% of the new start-ups in the US disappear within the first two years of existence. Start-up businesses, by definition, need to grow. No business can grow if the critical mass cannot be achieved.

Working within the boundaries of a business

To work within the boundaries of a system there is no need to have an extreme level of accuracy in the business process design. Within the boundaries, all that exists has proven to be more or less functional.

This implies that it works within a minimum strategy, which requires seeing to believe in order to confirm that everything that is done is functional. It can be said that developing a minimum strategy in business is analogous to a pool game, which is accessible to the majority of people.

But we would like to give you some information about the level that can be achieved within the boundaries of a business by giving you access to what a champ can do in a pool game:

This video is a demonstration that amateurism can be substituted by professionalism if you are willing to pay the prices and your market demands it.

We strongly recommend preparing to expand businesses unless you feel safe within the existent boundaries of your activity. It is only a question of the prices that people are willing to pay.

Peter Belohlavek

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute was the pioneer in using the unicist logical approach in complexity science research and became a private global decentralized leading research organization in the field of human adaptive systems. It has an academic arm and a business arm.
https://www.unicist.org/ucu-en/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/turi.pdf