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Case study: 20-year technology forecast for the board of directors

Competitive Futures was selected out of a dozen other vendors offering services in foresight to assist a multinational consumer goods company prepare a report for its Board of Directors on the next twenty years of technology and its impact on the company's competitive strategy. CompFutures was selected because of its background in technology foresight and its expertise in preparing custom studies for top management - and because many of the other vendors supposedly in the field of "futures studies" were unable to do more than just give keynote speeches or syndicated reports.

The client's corporate foresight team was selected to inform its board of directors about the technologies on the horizon for the next twenty years, and how these developments would impact the firm's competition. Furthermore, the team was limited to spending no more than 10% of its time on the project; all of their other job duties were still very much active. They turned a significant amount of the project over to us.

Competitive Futures put together a tailor-made program that included:

  • Training in our future intelligence methodology
  • Patent analysis to scan for where competitors were investing for the long-term
  • Socio-economic trend research to produce profiles of the customer of 2025
  • Wildcard scenario analysis to identify potential discontinuities for their strategy in the long-term

Results:

The study was presented successfully to the CEO and Board of Directors, who were impressed that the work not only showed disruptive technology on the horizon, but more importantly showed a larger future of non-linear change.

They became aware that many factors could destabilize their strategy in the longer term - prompting them to make new investments for the future.

Moreover, the corporate foresight team was commended on a strong project achieved with relative few resources.

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