Synergy: Encyclopedia - Synergy

Synergy

Synergy or synergism most often refers to the phenomenon of two or more discrete influences or agents acting in common to create an effect which is greater than the sum of the effects each is able to create independently.

The opposite of synergy is antagonism, the phenomenon where two agents in combination have an overall effect which is less than the sum of their individual effects.

Synergy has origins as a theological term describing the cooperation of human effort with divine will. In the 1960s it was first used to describe supposed economies of scale in business, reappearing in the the 1990s as a common business buzzword. See also gestalt.

Synergy has also been described as:

• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
• The difference between the combined effect and the sum of individual effects resulting from the interaction of a group of humans, agents or forces.
• "Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately" as given in Buckminster Fuller's book "Synergetics".

Synergy - Examples

Synergy - Drug Synergism

Drugs can interact in ways that enhance or magnify one or more effects, or side effects, of those drugs. This is sometimes exploited in combination preparations, such as Codeine mixed with Paracetamol to enhance the action of codeine as a pain reliever.

An example of negative effects of synergy is if more than one depressant drug is used (e.g. alcohol and Valium), the combination can cause a much greater reaction than simply the sum of the effects of each drug. In this particular case, the most serious consequence of drug synergy is the exaggerated respiratory depression that can be fatal if left untreated.

Synergy - Combined Effects of Pests

In a biological host organism population, the introduction of parasite A may cause 10% fatalities of the individuals, and parasite B may also cause 10% loss. When both parasites are present, the losses are observed to be significantly greater than the expected 20%, and it is said that the parasites in combination have a synergistic effect. An example is beekeeping in North America where three foreign parasites of the honeybee, acarine mite, tracheal mite and the small hive beetle, all were introduced within a short period of time.

Synergy - Health Effects of Pesticides

During the registration of pesticides in the US exhaustive tests are performed to discern health effects on humans at various levels. A regulatory upper limit of presence in foods is then placed on this pesticide. As long as residues in the food stay below this regulatory level, health effects are indiscernible and the food is considered safe to consume.

However in normal agricultural practice it is rare to use only a single pesticide. During the production of a crop five or six different materials may be used. Each of them has had determined a regulatory level at which they would be considered individually safe.

Yet, since they have not ever been tested in combination, no data has ever been produced to show whether there is or is not a synergistic effect of the various combinations that humans consume. Some groups think that the rising rates of cancer, asthma and other health problems may be caused by this; others have other explanations. This question will likely be answered only after years of exposure by the population in general.

Synergy - Interacting Humans

Person A alone is too short to reach an apple on a tree and person B is too short as well. Once person B sits on the shoulders of person A, they are more than tall enough to reach the apple. In this example, the product of their synergy would be one apple.

Another case would be two politicians. If each is able to gather one million votes on their own, but together they were able to appeal to 2.5 million voters, their synergy would have produced 500,000 votes.

Synergy usually arises when two persons with different complementary skills cooperate. The fundamental example is cooperation of men and women in a couple. In business, cooperation of people with organizational and technical skills is very often. In general, most common reason why people cooperate is that it brings a synergy. On the other hand, people tend to specialize just to be able to form groups with high synergy (see also division of labor and teamwork).

Synergy - Corporate Synergy

A corporate synergy refers to a financial benefit that a corporation expects to realize when it merges with or acquires another corporation. This type of synergy is a nearly ubiquitous feature of a corporate acquisition and is a negotiating point between the buyer and seller that impacts the final price both parties agree to. There are two distinct types of corporate synergies:

Revenue

A revenue synergy refers to the opportunity of a combined corporate entity to generate more revenue than its two predecessor standalone companies would be able to generate. For example, if company A sells product X through its sales force, company B sells product Y, and company A decides to buy company B then the new company could use each sales person to sell products X and Y thereby increasing the revenue that each sales person generates for the company.

Cost

A cost synergy refers to the opportunity of a combined corporate entity to reduce or eliminate expenses associated with running a business. Cost synergies are realized by eliminating positions that are viewed as duplicitous within the merged entity. Examples include the head quarters office of one of the predecessor companies, certain executives, the human resources department, or other employees of the predecessor companies. This is related to the economic concept of Economies of Scale.

Synergy - Computers and Humans

Synergy is the combination of human strengths and computer strengths. Computers can process data much faster than humans, but lack common sense. When a person uses a computer, the person’s thoughts are the input for the computer, where it is translated into efficient processing of large amounts of data. Other humans must first set up the methods for processing.

Synergy - Quantity and Quality

In some systems higher quantity of elements automatically produces even much higher quality of the whole system. This synergy depends on organization of elements in the system. An example is neural network, where complexity, number of possible paths, and therefore also quality of the network depends strictly on number of neurons and their connectors and on the way how they are connected together. Here we can even define function evaluating quality depending on quantity: q(n) and if e.g. q(n+m) > q(n) + q(m), we can say that two well cooperating systems generate a synergy. In the best cases quality function is exponential. However, a quantity threshold always ensures quality does not rise to infinity. Simply, too large systems become clumsy. On the other hand, the single elements themselves often do not produce any quality (q(1) = 0).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Synergy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki