Exponential Organizations

Have you heard of companies like Uber or AirBnB? If you have, then you’ve also come face to face with an exponential organization.

An exponential organization, or ExO, describes an organization that because of its ability to leverage new technologies can claim production, output or overall impact that is at least ten times larger than a regular organization in the same field.

In short, an ExO can do more, produce more and dominate its market niche with less people or resources when compared to a non-ExO company.

ExOs are experts in adaptation. These companies are part of a new business paradigm, in which competition doesn't necessarily mean heavy hitters based in China or India. In fact, competing firms  could come equally from a start-up based in your neighbor’s garage!

How long a company has been around or how many employees it has just doesn’t guarantee success anymore. Kodak, for example, was a historic, large organization that went belly up almost overnight.

This new, finicky nature of the business world has other benefits, too: a company can now experience unprecedented rates of growth and success with a minimum of resources.

Exponential growth as a concept is often not completely understood. Take the Human Genome Project, the goal of which was to sequence the human genome. In the project’s first seven years, researchers were able to only sequence one percent of our genome; yet in the following seven years, researchers were able to complete the remaining 99 percent!

This sort of rapid progress is what sets ExOs apart – companies like Uber, AirBnB and Google are just some examples of successful ExO firms.

Ideally small and flexible, the ExO model doesn’t just apply to businesses, but works also for NGOs and governmental bodies.

Even the scientific field has embraced ExO ideas. Publications such as Researchgate and Figshare are now open source, so their work can reach even more people.

The ideas behind exponential organizations have reshaped much of what we know about business today. And it’s only the beginning...