Strategic trend research - getting crucial data for client decisions

All foresight must start with hard data from reliable sources.

Competitive Futures has a unique methodology when it comes to guiding its clients into the future - we actually provide data on how the world is changing in the coming five to twenty years to help clients understand what they should do in the short-term.

strategic trend research This may seem like an incredibly obvious activity. Naturally, if you are planning for anything you should get the best data. The interesting thing about the future is that the majority of executives don't do this.

A simple exercise - ask a colleague "What are the top three strategic trends impacting your organization?" Could it be fluctuating raw material prices? Rapidly shifting customer demographics? Tectonically important technological shifts due to mobile communications? Water shortage?

After more than a decade of providing insight to leaders of business and government, we have discovered than less than 2% of managers at major organizations are able to name important strategic trends off the top of their heads. This isn't purely negligence; there are strong motivations for keeping people focused uniquely on the next quarter. An economy in rapid fluctuation is likely to make managers focus on what is right in front of them to assure survival. Of course, there is also the perennial concern of publicly-traded company basing compensation on quarterly performance as a proxy for making the stock price improve. Still, the future doesn't especially care whether you have time to study its trends - it is coming to change your business model for good and for bad regardless of whether your compensation package is attuned to this longer-range perspective.

This is why, simply put, we get the data about future trends for our clients. Competitive Futures provides custom research about where our clients' markets are heading so they can make better decisions, faster than their competitors. After years of doing this very specific type of strategic research, we are best in the world at finding superior, reliable sources of insight about how the world is changing. In many cases, we have personal relationships with the top researchers and analysts in their respective fields of expertise. This is why we deliver more reliable information in shorter time frames on future trends such as:

  • Customer demographics
  • Human resources talent pool availability
  • Economic indicators
  • Raw material supply and demand
  • Science and technology research and development
  • Import and export
  • International risk
  • Global lifestyles

After more than ten years in the business, Competitive Futures maintains a constantly updated database of trends that form the basis of many of our successful research projects for the world's most innovative organizations.