Environmental Scanning
Forecasting
Foresight
Future
Future Screening
Futurism
Innovation Management
PEST Analysis
Risk Management
Scenarios
Strategic Management
Strategic Surprise
Strong Signals
Weak Signals
Environmental Scanning
Accessing a company’s external, turbulent and sometimes complex environment in terms
of its competitive and entrepreneurial (or strategic) behaviour, combined with its
political, economical and ecological, social and technological influences (see also PEST Analysis). The external environment consists of all conditions
and forces which affect the strategic options and operational activities of the company.
Forecasting
It is a quantitative approach (e.g. projections) for generating knowledge about the
future. Past developments are extended into the future using certain assumptions for the
extrapolation of trends (in contrast to Foresight).
Foresight
Foresight is future research in organisations as part of a medium to long-term (eight to
twenty years, sometimes even fifty years) strategy development task to better get to know
the future with the goal to transfer challenges of the future into innovations and
therefore to increase the overall learning and innovation capacities. It is a qualitative
approach of foreseeing the future (in contrast to Forecasting).
Future
The future lies ahead of us and contains an element of uncertainty for which companies try
to prepare in order to deal with these uncertainties.
Future Screening
It is a sub process in a contemporary approach to business strategy development where based on long-term scenarios (which were built by combining strong and weak signals), strategic conversations should be held. It is seen as a prerequisite for the situation analysis and strategy formulation. This sub process fosters strategic thinking and makes companies aware of discontinuities. It should stimulate companies to look beyond a three or five year planning horizon in strategy development, to strengthen the innovation capabilities and to take better advantage of opportunities and to defend threats in the long run.
Futurism
A science which tries to develop an understanding of the future and to know what causes
change in the PEST environment.
Innovation Management
The management of new ideas and the creation of something new that has significant value
to the organisation or industry.
PEST Analysis
A classification scheme in order to analyse the political (P), economical and ecological
(E), social (S) and technological (T) influences of the external environment of a company
(see also Environmental Scanning).
Risk Management
A discipline to assess operational and strategic risk and to develop strategies to manage
these external (and internal) risk factors.
Scenarios
A story or model of an expected or supposed image of the future which includes certain
assumed events, built through the application of a number of methodologies. Scenarios are
based on findings from environmental scanning activities about future developments.
Strategic Management
A process to turn environmental threats into opportunities and to plan on how a company
will be managed in the future (five to twenty, in some cases more, years from today on).
Strategic Surprise
A strategic issue of high importance that suddenly and unexpectedly arrived and poses
novel problems in which the firm has little prior experience. However, it requires
immediate response and cannot be handled by the normal systems and procedures (also know
as Wildcards or Critical Events).
Strong Signals
Generally recognised assumptions, e.g. change in demographics and further influence of
e-business, which can be connected with an industry or market. These issues are visible
and relatively concrete to permit the firm to compute their impact and to devise specific
plans for response (see also Weak Signals).
Weak Signals
Weak Signals are the smallest accessible data elements in environmental scanning which can
be seen as the source for disruption in strategic planning. Weak signals are poorly
conceptualised signals and/or signals which are currently unconnected with an industry or
market. They include opportunities and threats and will develop over time. Its
identification and correct interpretation can be vital to the success or survival of a
company. Because the information is vague and the future course unclear, the responses
will be correspondingly unfocused (see also Strong Signals).
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