The Importance of Strategic Foresight
So far in my latest series of blogs, I’ve defined strategic foresight and analysed some tools to help you implement it within your organisation.
Strategic foresight is a systematic method of analysing possible futures to help businesses prepare for the future and make better decisions.
It involves considering a range of plausible futures, and then distilling them down to the most likely scenarios. Companies can then use this information to identify opportunities and challenges and align their strategies accordingly.
Steps including scenario planning and developing opportunity frameworks will give you the intelligence and market insights you need to develop your business and stand apart from your competitors in today’s VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world.
Strategic foresight is a relatively new area and goes beyond more well-understood practices such as market intelligence and strategic planning.
It’s also important to understand that the discipline is well-reaching and comprehensive - covering all sectors and the economy and society in general.
Understanding what is and is not interconnected is key. Photo Steve Johnson Unsplash
As the world becomes ever more interconnected, understanding how different sectors and drivers for change may impact your organisation is more vital than ever.
While many business leaders may consider it relatively easy to predict upcoming trends within their own field, foresight around what may eventuate in other sectors or the business landscape more generally can be more challenging.
This becomes even more nuanced when it comes to looking beyond the next two or three years.
The key importance of strategic foresight includes:
Helping to predict, so prepare for, future challenges your business may face;
Identifying potential opportunities, to put your company in a better position to take advantage of them;
Assisting with developing optimal processes and policies for probable futures;
Stress-testing existing strategies and processes against probable futures.
Look out for the final article in this series – “The Benefits of Strategic Foresight.”
If you need further information about these approaches, or any other resilience topic, please contact russell@theresiliencecoach.co.uk.