Synergy

1. Behaviour of integral, aggregate, whole systems unpredicted by behaviours of any of their parts, components, or subassemblies of components taken separately from the whole. (There are progressive degrees of synergy, namely synergy-of-synergies, which are complexes of behaviour aggregates holistically unpredicted by the separate behaviours of any of their successive subcomplex components. There is thus a synergetic progression, a hierarchy of total complex behaviours. The Universe is therefore the maximum synergy-of-synergies, being utterly unpredicted by any of its parts.)

2. Synergy is a major component of an enterprise's product-market strategy and is a measure of joint effects which can produce a combined return on the organization's resources greater than the sum of its parts. Thus the potential return on investment for an integrated enterprise is higher than the composite return which would be obtained if the same financial volumes for its respective products were produced by a number of independent enterprises. The synergistic effect can be measured in either of two ways: by estimating the cost economics to the enterprise from a joint operation for a given level of revenue; or by estimating the increase in net revenue for a given level of investment. Synergetic effects may be obtained through: sales and distribution integration; integration of operating facilities and personnel utilization; integration of plant, inventories and other investments; and integration of management expertise, particularly at the highest level.

3. Cooperative and interactive effects between social and technical innovations may be termed synergistic. They tend to be important not only because advances in one area are correlated with or spur advances in other areas, but also because various separate advances often allow for unexpected solutions to problems, or can be fitted together to make new wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts, or lead to other unexpected innovations.