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Written by Debaditya Sekhar Jena
Strategy and foresight are two disciplines that are equally important for business growth. It is time for leaders and companies to incorporate foresight into their strategic planning initiatives.
The Ability to Adapt
Nokia's journey from the top of the smartphone pyramid to its eventual acquisition by Microsoft in 2013 is well documented and understood. Nokia had an exemplary record in strategic agility, technological performance, and posting positive financial results. We know about these stories. We have heard them, and we remember them. But, for the sake of foresight, let's go through one of them again.
Management at Nokia knew about their burning platform, and that competition from Apple hardware and software innovations was rapidly disrupting the global smartphone market. Yet, the company could not shift its strategy and incorporate the trends bringing seismic shifts to its playground. In the end, the fall of Nokia's smartphone business was quick and decisive. Nokia had a strategy and the capacity to see the future, yet it failed to pivot and change.
As Quy Huy and Timo Vuori mention in their research paper, Nokia's top management's fear of accepting change and the middle management's response of remaining silent and following existing strategies to achieve already set goals paralysed the company's ability to innovate and stay afloat in a rapidly changing smartphone industry. Nokia's faith in obsolete technology and increasing pressure to achieve positive financial results further hindered its ability to grow.
Shifting Tides: What is Strategic Foresight?
Companies must focus on protecting their existing businesses and developing new products, services, and business models to survive the incoming climate catastrophe and broader societal and systemic shifts. It is essential to recognise that building a corporate strategy based only on quantitative predictive models cannot predict the unpredictable shifting tides in the industry. Strategy alone cannot support innovation and business reinvention. It is time that foresight and strategy are brought under the same umbrella of protecting and growing businesses in an uncertain world.
Strategic foresight is a discipline of arts and science that equips organisations with a mindset to anticipate and navigate future uncertainties. Foresight allows businesses to reinvent themselves continuously, understand the forces impacting their playground, anticipate and build capacity for future shifts, and build resilient strategies in shifting tides and turbulent waters.
The Way Forward
Strategy development is about making choices. It is about navigating uncertainties in the vast ocean of possibilities and moving away from conventional and linear thinking. At OCAD U CO, strategy development is not linear or predictable but inherently creative. It is filled with human imagination and intuition in a symbiotic relationship with data and technology.
Traditional strategy development favoured by consulting firms prioritises quantitative analysis and data-driven insights. While it has its own merits and provides valuable information about achieving goals, together with foresight methods, it can provide companies with a more nuanced understanding of threats and opportunities. Numbers and narratives define the future, and businesses must consider both.
Strategic Foresight can answer a myriad of questions that influence our world today. For example, consider the following:
How do you redefine and protect company brands in an era where Generative Artificial Intelligence is vital to building relationships between the brand and its consumers?
How do you maintain a competitive edge in markets facing turbulent times ahead due to changing customer expectations influenced by the mid to late 21st-century climate crisis?
OCAD U CO offers services to support businesses in crafting solutions to wicked problems backed by a foresight process. Our futures thinking approach uses strong qualitative research and quantitative data analysis, leading to fresh insights about emerging trends and poignant scenarios that offer a clear image of plausible futures.
OCAD U CO offers business results, prepares companies to adopt foresight into day-to-day business activities, and holds foresight and strategy development processes accountable to business goals and objectives.
To understand what role future designers play in securing more equitable and profitable futures for your businesses, we encourage you to contact us to learn more about our processes and how our designers bring forward-thinking innovations to life.
Don't hesitate to contact us at hello@ocadu.co and follow us on LinkedIn!
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Well said Debaditya. The only way to stay relevant in today's business scenario is to adopt proactive -not reactive, approach to change. We need to stay ahead of the curve to gain a competitive edge over others and reinforce the brand strength