An identical task or function can be performed in different ways. The business concept describes how this is done in each individual case.
As a rule, there are many different ways to achieve the same result for a task or function. However, the basic task always remains the same. What does change are the answers to always the same four sub-questions:
- The speed at which the task is completed
- the energy input required,
- the material input required or
- the quality of task fulfillment or the functional characteristics of task fulfillment that are relevant in the specific context
(i.e. how well the required function is performed in the individual case)
These changes are almost always about “faster” in terms of speed or “lower” in terms of energy and material consumption. When it comes to the question of quality, however, it becomes difficult because “quality” can include many different things. While the first three aspects are at least in principle measurable and therefore amenable to an objective assessment, the fourth aspect is always dependent on the context and its assessment is therefore solely in the eye of the beholder. What means increased quality for one person may mean a step backwards for another.
In practice, it is even more complicated, as a basic task can usually be broken down into subtasks. This results in two further possible variations, which can also be seen as variations of the fourth point, the quality of task fulfillment: the first variation is the unbundling, i.e. omission, of subtasks, the second variation is the addition of additional subtasks. We then pretend that we are talking about the same function or an identical task, but in reality we are talking about different things. Figuratively speaking, the comparison between the tasks is like comparing apples and pears: they are two completely different fruits. Yet they are both fruits.
A similar question as to whether something is missing in these 4 points can also be asked in relation to money/capital or personnel. Aren't they also missing from the list? From our point of view: No, because they are actually only substitutes for one or a combination of the 4 points mentioned. Money is “only” a universal medium of exchange and possibly a “storage medium” for previously used energy and material. A single person represents a bundle of energy, material and the ability to provide a certain quality. In order to acquire and maintain this ability, the person had to invest energy and material in their individual education / training and requires energy and materials for living.
Focusing on the functional content of a task and the required characteristics of task fulfillment makes it possible to identify the alternatives that are actually in competition.
In the course of historical development, attempts to improve the first three aspects have led to the development of increasingly complex technical solutions. Each new solution has created new functional (sub-)tasks that are necessary as building blocks to make the overall solution to the primary task possible at all.
As a rule, every new solution approach will increase technical complexity. However, it may well be that within a long networked value creation system, which is the basis of a specific solution approach, the technical complexity shifts to completely different places. For customers, this may very well mean that the technical complexity of a solution relevant to them decreases because it has been shifted to other points in the value chain. It is just as possible for a new solution to increase the technical complexity for the customer.
Let's take the door locks of a modern hotel as an example. Highly complex mechanical locks with different keys for each room and general keys for hotel personnel, which are expensive to replace if lost or accidentally taken by the guest, have been replaced by comparatively mechanically simple door locks with electronic keys in the form of a magnetic strip or chip card or a cell phone with an app. The technical complexity of door locks and keys has shifted from the mechanics in the door lock to the electronics of the door locks, the software for generating and managing the codes and the transmission of these codes to the door lock. However, the cards used as keys (code carriers) are very easy and cheap to replace. In case the code is provided via smartphone it gets even simpler, since almost everyone has a smartphone with them anyway. A clear advantage for the hotel.
Hotel guests no longer have to carry keys around with them. Elaborate tags to differentiate keys from different rooms and to prevent keys from being lost or accidentally taken away on departure are no longer required. Most people probably see this as an advantage. On the other hand, each door must now have an electrical device to read the code and unlock it. The guest no longer has to insert a key into the keyhole and turn the key, but has to get to grips with the key code reader, which sometimes works better and sometimes less well. The task of locking the hotel room and having the guest open it individually has not changed, but it is performed in a completely different way and with a completely new quality.
This principle can also be explained using the specific example of transporting a message from location A to another location B. The evaluation of how the task is fulfilled depends on the four criteria mentioned above: the speed of message transmission, the material and energy required for this and the quality of message transmission. The basic qualitative aspects for evaluating message transmission have also remained constant over time: As a rule, it should be flexible (at any time and with variable content), reliable and confidential. However, this does not mean that every specific messaging solution fulfills these various aspects equally well - quite the opposite.
The basic task of transmitting a message has never changed, but the way it is implemented has changed dramatically over the course of history
Let's take up the other example mentioned above again: delivering a message from one place A to another place B. In its simplest form, a messenger delivers the message personally. The most famous messenger run in (Western) history is the one from Marathon to Athens. The time of the message transmission was determined by the messenger's running speed. The material used was the messenger himself as well as the clothes and especially the shoes he wore. The energy was the food he consumed during the run or before he started. The quality of the message transmitted by a messenger is then generally dependent on how well the messenger can memorize the message. If you evaluate this type of message transmission, there are clear limits to the speed, as humans are not particularly fast.
With a duration to the run of e.g. about 3h
the messenger would have achieved an average speed of roughly 14 km/h. The „Material input“ of the original Marathon run according to the Legend by Plutarch and Lukian was prohibitivly high, as supposedly the messenger according to legend broke down and died upon delivery of his message. The energy input during the endurance run was approx. 3,400 kcal, which results from the energy consumption of a person with an assumed weight of the runner of 80 kg and the distance. The quality of a message transmitted in this way is limited by the messenger's ability to understand and remember. The more “extensive” the message, the more the speed of message transmission decreases, because the correct learning of the message by the messenger is part of the speed of message transmission. In the example of the marathon run, the message was very simple because it consisted of: “We have won!”.
In the course of its evolutionary history, man has come up with a wide variety of ways to transmit ever more complex messages faster and more reliably. With each development step, the technical effort and often also the energy expenditure has increased - not necessarily only in terms of the effort required for the individual message, but also for the preparatory effort required before even the first message can be transmitted. In return for this “preparation effort”, the speed of the message has now been increased to almost the speed of light by separating the message from a physical carrier medium and transforming it into a pure electrical/photonic signal transmission. The physical transportation of messages has also accelerated dramatically compared to Marathon's messenger, as more and more technical aids for transportation have been developed, including today's air freight and new visions of the future for physical transportation such as the Hyperloop.
The development of the electrical transmission of messages has not come to a standstill with the level reached today, but continues unabated. New ways of combining existing and new elements are constantly emerging, creating new properties for the transport service to be provided. The most recent example is the introduction of the 5th generation mobile communications standard, which ultimately “only” further increases the speed for large message volumes in mobile transmission and reduces latency. It thus creates new possibilities for flexibility with large data volumes and is in turn a new element that enables new variations in other business concepts where wireless transmissin speed and latency are of importance.
The separation of the message from its physical binding to a data carrier during transportation has simultaneously raised a multitude of new problems with regard to the quality of message transmission. These range from the reliability of the transmission to the confidentiality of the message, as the core characteristic of pure message data without a physical link to a data carrier is that it can be copied at will and is therefore not confidential.
However, the consideration of the task fulfillment or function of a business presented here is solely concerned with the question of the functionality of the business concept. The other aspects that are part of a complete description of a business concept, i.e. competitiveness, value distribution and viability, must also be considered below.
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