| This first draft of a Future Screening framework
for advanced corporate foresight has been created based on an in-depth literature review
and with the experience gathered in a foresight project for a Swiss retail bank. The
current objective of the research is to gather empirical evidence of the need and
practicability of such a framework. The Future Screening process includes the following
six steps:
1) Scanning of the external and internal environment through the corporate surveillance
radar for strong and weak signals;
2) Signals collection and storing;
3) Signals analysis;
4) Building of scenarios and images of the future;
5) Running of future workshops with the member of the board of directors and senior
executives;
6) Continuous monitoring of the developed scenarios and its underlying signals.
Fig. 1: A first draft for a Future Screning Framwork for Advanced Strategic Corporate
Foresight (October 2006)
The framework assesses the external environment with its high degree of uncertainty in
order to gather weak and strong signals which announce changes in the future landscape
through environmental scanning.
The research will demonstrate that scenario building in a complex and dynamic
environment should be carried out by scenario building methods with a non econometric
approach, basically by combining signals in a meaningful way.
Once the scenarios have been developed, the relevant stakeholders (e.g. finance,
marketing and product managers) should be challenged in future workshops with regard to
opportunities and threats for their strategy and/or product in the long run. The outcomes
will flow into the strategy development process in order to be prepared for the future.
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