The philosophy behind our analyst training services
To succeed in the face of unprecedented change, all organizations require managers who can track shifts thoughout the world in a structured way. Ironically, the vast majority of universities do nothing in the way of teaching how to analyze change, neither for business nor public administration. You will learn managerial accounting, but not the art of forecast assessment. You may take a class in marketing and communications, but not scenario planning. Professors will teach you to read a balance sheet, but not to identify market trends. Once in the workforce, organizations rarely provide additional training to enhance this increasingly critical set of skills. It should be no surprise, then, when our organizations produce leaders that mimic the successful behaviors of yesterday and cannot innovate based on new realities. They have never been given the toolkit.
Competitive Futures' philosophy is that as the world's rate of change increases, so must the sophistication of its analysts increase at a similar or greater pace. We thus offer a range of training solutions unlike any organization in the public or private sector, centered around the disciplines of strategic intelligence. With over a decade in the business of providing best-in-class analysis, we have incorporated a wide range of skills that are useful to the modern analyst, and can transfer those skills to individuals who are striving to improve the capabilities of their own organization.
The Future Intelligence system is the cornerstone of Competitive Futures analysis. It is also our most popular one-day course, which has been enjoyed by thousands of executives in organizations around the world. More importantly, our clients who have taken the course have done us the great honor of reporting that they actually use the techniques they learn in real life as soon as the complete the trainig.
Having trained thousands of executives in the art of foresight, we know that now, more than ever, we need a clear view of the events coming in weeks, months and year, or we risk making decisions on faulty assumptions. What passes for business media is scarcely a help in this area. If you listen uncritically to the forecasts offered up in most channels, you have to base your view of the future on:
Scenario planning is one of the most common techniques in the modern managerial lexicon - and one of the least understood.