How to anticipate what the future of your business will be

Why 9 out of 10 CEO's are completely wrong about this strategic challenge

The most common myth we hear in 'C suite' strategy sessions is "It's impossible to anticipate what the future of our business will be". We hear this in Manufacturing, Finance, Start-ups, Techs, Pharmas and FMCG's. From the USA and Europe to Asia and the Pacific CEO's have got it wrong when it comes to the future.

The fact is that it is possible to anticipate what the future holds and create a commercial strategy that takes full advantage of future trends, disruptors and future customer demands.

Why is it then that if it's possible to anticipate what the future holds that leaders are not following up on this capability?

Partly this is due to the fact that too few organisations understand how to utilise futurist skills and how to incorporate them into their business strategy. Futurist skills are the skills utilised by professional futurists, yes this is a real profession and it's even possible to gain tertiary degrees in Future studies at certain universities around the world.

Futurists employ a number of techniques to allow them to anticipate a future for an organisation.

These techniques can range from environmental scanning to scenario planning.

The challenge that many CEO's have is in finding the right futurist to help them them with identifying the key drivers, trends and uncertainties relevant to their specific industry and furthermore following this up by developing a commercial strategy.

The good news is that any smart 'C suite' executive can learn and apply these futurist skills to create a commercial strategy.

Here's 4 simple ways to ensure your organisation is on the front foot with Futurist capability and strategic skills to capture the future market.

Scan - start scanning for emerging trends 
Plot - determine and plot future key drivers and uncertainties 
Imagine - imagine what future worlds will look like 
Design - design strategies and contingencies for future scenarios

Now before we unpack the futurist strategic techniques, let's identify the five key consequences if we fail to capitalise on the future.

Our products or services fail to captivate the market
We fail to anticipate future customer needs
We cannot close the gap on a competitors lead
The intellectual property is all sewn up and untouchable
We lose massive market share

1. SCAN. Foresight requires a fresh vision of what's coming up.

The more we scan current and emerging trends, the further we can see into the impending future. The futurists' foundation is scanning for emerging trends. Futurists use the STEEP methodology for this. It is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful, yet simple, tools in their skill set.

The more niched a futurist's expertise, the more likely other scanning areas will be included. I've worked with organisations that have even included legal trends as part of their scanning work. You too may find you have your own version of scanning.

To begin scanning, the futurist identifies what materials they want to scan. Digital materials make sense yet futurists aren't averse to analogue materials. The challenge many people have, when looking for emerging trends, is that they usually start looking within trade publications in their industry.

Whilst this is valuable and should be done, you're unlikely to find the next big thing before your competition if you're all reading the same articles.

Futurists cast their net much further afield than the specific industry in which an organisation is working.

What's more important is considering the context of the information for which they are scanning.

The context includes the specific services or products the organisation provides, their customers, consumers and users, and other elements that can affect them.

Understanding this context allows futurists to scan a wide range of materials and to discover emerging trends, long before the competition is aware of them.

Media that futurists scan may include newspapers and magazines (including social, lifestyle, hobby, business and industry publications).

This can be done in a cost-effective manner by applying for a digital trial subscription to a syndicated magazine publishing company, which allows the perusal of multiple magazines or newspapers, without having to pay for them.

Let's not forget white papers, green papers, reports and other serious papers.

Now that they've collected materials to scan, there are five key corresponding areas to the STEEP acronym that the futurist scans, for emerging and existing trends.

Sociocultural Trends - Every organisation is affected by sociocultural trends; the challenge is determining how they're affected.

A sociocultural trend is something like the amount of time people spend on their digital devices when they are socialising.

As futurists scan through their collected materials, they are asking themselves "Is there a relationship between this trend and what our organisation does?' and "Could this trend affect us or the people who use our service or product?'

The futurist isn't hell-bent on trying to answer this question as they scan; instead, they keep it in mind as a loose contextual filter to what they are scanning.

A current example of a sociocultural trend that has been on the rise (when going to print) is the sharing and trust economy. In this trend, people are becoming more willing to share with and trust other people, as is demonstrated in the success of AirBnb, which currently facilitates sharing over a million rooms. As futurists find trends, they simply collect them to compile later.

Technological trends - Next, futurists scan technological or scientific trends that may have an impact on their world.

A technological trend ranges from the latest wearable smart sensor technology to a new advance in genome testing. Technological trends are always changing from the cloud and big data to genetic profiling and targeted personal medication. It's all worth noting.

Economic trends -The volatility of the economy on both an international and local scale is a trend definitely worth scanning.

Futurists scan for trends, signals and indicators of new directions the economy might take. Will the China boom continue and what does that mean? Will coal-seam gas exploration in the United States lead to economic recovery?

On a national scale, are there trends such as employment rates, award rates and wage increases worth noting? Perhaps there's a trend of increasing pharmaceutical benefits or a change in environmental rebates for home owners using solar panels that should be noted.

On a micro scale, are trends signalling a resurgence or demise in a local suburb or municipality? Is there a new residential, commercial or retail development planned?

Other economic trends include "I need, you have', which means people would rather hire than buy. This has led to the preference to hiring a car through a car club versus buying one, as well as to paying for access to music collections versus buying individual songs or albums.

Another economic trend worth noting is that an ever increasing number of AirBnb hosts report they use the income to help pay off their mortgages.

Larger economic trends can be indicators for our own nation's economies and the demand for an organisation's products and services. Perhaps the trend of ever increasing venture capital funding from crowd funding is worth keeping in mind. At time of writing, crowd funding in the United States was estimated to be worth over $16 billion, as well, on its way to raising $34 billion.

Environmental trends - I've found that sometimes there's push back around scanning for environmental trends. A financier might say, "This has nothing to do with me." "Really?"I ask. I quickly follow up with some relevant trends on organisations investing in environmental projects, such as Google's environmental investments in wind farms and financing for solar residential rooftops or I might mention the $8 billion dollars invested by households in renewable energy. The rather sheepish financier usually sees the opportunity after those remarks.

Environmental trends can also include that involve the built environment and the effects this has on people.

Trends, such as the increase in obesity or interest a new professional field such as neuro-psychology, may be areas from which you can draw insights.

Technological trends - Next, futurists scan technological or scientific trends that may have an impact on their world.

Political trends - Political trends include challenges regarding illegal immigration, potential changes in government; the rise of an environmental political party that opposes coal-seam gas exploration or a movement to decommission nuclear power plants.

Perhaps it's a country's commitment to military offensive or a government's policy to spy and gain information on a country's residents.

One of the fastest growing companies in the world at the moment is NEXTDC, with over 3,626% growth. It's growing this quickly because organisations don't like governments spying on their data and want more privacy. NEXTDC recognised this emerging trend and pounced on it to provide the most secure private data centres in the world.

Once futurists have completed their scanning, they proceed to sort through the results and they create posters for each trend area, by noting the relevant trends, labelling them and recording any insights they may have gained.

They then proceed to share their learning and insights with their clients and to start a discussion about the emerging trends they have discovered.

This key futurist principle that you now have in your possession is a great tool to create commercial insights.

Conclusion

This is the first stage in futurist thinking. In our next blog we'll cover how to plot and create contingencies.

To find out more about innovative strategy for your organisation consider reading our book - Innovation Archetypes - Principles for world-class innovation, or a bespoke program.

Cheers,
Nils