Applying Strategic Foresight In Global Business

By M. Isi Eromosele

What's the difference between strategic planning and strategic foresight? Its all a matter of direction. Planning considers a multitude of factors in the present environment, measures them and then extrapolates the data into the future. On the other hand, foresight considers first what the future might hold and gives you a target to plan back into the present. Planning is very inward-focused. Foresight is very outward-focused.

There has perhaps never been a time in human history when strategic foresight is more needed. Precious little guidance is available for executives, analysts, and educators seeking the best way to plan and prepare for the future. Because the future is not predetermined or predictable, future outcomes can be influenced by our choices in the present and that is where strategic foresight comes into play.

At once highly creative and methodical, strategic foresight gives organizations the ability to create and maintain a high-quality forward view to detect threats and opportunities before they reach mainstream awareness, to guide policy, and to shape strategy. The ultimate goal of strategic foresight is to make better, more informed decisions in the present, making it the ideal tool for exploring new markets, products, and services, or more generally for successfully navigating the rapids of today's constantly shifting, increasingly complex global environment.

Six phases of Strategic Foresight

Framing

This important first step enables organizations to define the scope and focus of problems requiring strategic foresight. By taking time at the outset of a project, the team analyzing a problem can clarify the objective and determine how best to address it.

Scanning

Once the team is clear about the boundaries and scope of an activity, it can scan the internal and external environments for relevant information and trends.

Forecasting

Most organizations, if not challenged, tend to believe the future is going to be pretty much like the past. When the team probes the organization's view of the future, they usually find an array of unexamined assumptions that tend to converge around incremental changes. The task, then, is to challenge this view and prod the organization to think seriously about the possibility that things may not continue as they have and in fact, rarely do. Considering a range of potential futures is the only surefire way to develop robust strategies that will position the organization securely for any future that may occur.

Visioning

After forecasting has laid out a range of potential futures, visioning comes into play, generating the organization's ideal or preferred future and starting to suggest stretch goals for moving toward it.

Planning

This is the bridge between the vision and the action. Here, the team translates what could be into strategies and tactics that will lead toward the preferred future.

Acting

This final phase is largely about communicating results, developing action agendas, and institutionalizing strategic thinking and intelligence systems, so the organization can nimbly and continually respond to the changing external environment.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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