Firms, defined as those with a corporate foresight practice, posted 33 percent higher profitability than the average company and 200 percent higher growth.

An Invitation

There is a necessity for an INITIATIVE or initiating a prospective/foresight approach in one’s organization as it is one of the most important steps in the current context of major changes and disruptions. This initiative, which begins with the organization, allows it to not only better manage its existential and relevance risks on the medium and longer terms but allows it to rise beyond the complication of the environment, the increase in uncertainty and the dynamics of change. This initiative and attitude positively effects its ecosystem, the community and the regional and national economy. A virtuous circle is established, maintained and developed. Inversely, the absence of such of an initiative has a negative impact on an organization and its environment.

Change is a constant

The recent pandemic showed us how interconnected and interdependent of a world we live in, how a local action or inaction can lead to global and amplified impacts. This situation helped us draw significant lessons about preparedness to survive and recover from existential, structural or systemic shocks and changes.

We all have two businesses 

When considering the speed at which incumbents are disrupted and how the longevity of S&P 500 corporations has steadily shrunk and if McKinsey is correct, by 2027, 75% of S&P companies will succumb to extinction. 

Any business or organization is in fact made of two; the one they are today and the one they need to be for the future. 

The future as an asymmetric information

In the futures thinking field, we say that the future is not evenly distributed. In the business world, we call this an “asymmetry of information”. Some people have more information than others, like a seller to a buyer for example.

This informational divide can be filled as futures studies spun off a rich set of methods and tools that are accessible to individuals and organizations alike.

What we need to fill now is the “decision divide” by helping organizations commit to this “initiative” and learn the language of the future, engage its teams to get involved with foresight’s best practices tested along the years and experience and improve on its results.

In order to accomplish this transformation, individuals and organizations must learn and understand how to design a future that is preferred for them rather than having a future being imposed upon them by circumstances or other outside forces. 

Mobilizing for the future

This “initiative” is a call to mobilize organizations at all levels, individual and organizations, private and public, as we are all facing the challenge of having to make decisions today for a highly unpredictable future and the methodology for ensuring that today’s decisions take account of the future is known as future-proofing or foresight. 

Every day we deal with clear, present and often times urgent problems which create the habit of naturally using our “short-term” fast thinking and toolbox. This is fine but not when we need to address long-term problems and opportunities which requires a slower kind of thinking amongst other things. Therefore, in order to cope with the rapid, interconnected and discontinuous change of the future, organizations need to develop new capabilities and new practices.

The only way to predict the future is to create it

A foresight program, also known as strategic foresight, prospective or futures planning, involves anticipating and understanding potential future trends, changes, and developments that could impact an organization’s long-term success. 

Foresight goes beyond risk assessment by exploring a range of possible scenarios and considering how they might shape the organization’s strategic decisions. Foresight programs use tools like trend, signal and driver analysis, scenario planning, and horizon scanning to identify emerging opportunities and challenges, helping organizations adapt and innovate in a rapidly changing environment.

“Potential disruption must be disrupted by our determination to create the future”

Though the practice of foresight this innate ability to see beyond the present, by using its mindset, methods and tools, organizations can develop a proactive attitude, oriented towards:

• Agency: this ability, right and power to perform an action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect
• Choice: the future is plural, there is not only one future to detect but many futures to explore
• Readiness, and agility: this ability to be ready to act in a prompt and highly relevant manner
• Resiliency and anti-fragility: the ability to first go back to normality after exceptional imbalance and then grow from the imbalance
• Ambidexterity: the ability to defend and enhance the core business while being at work to introduce solutions/products and process  innovations both at incremental and at disruptive pace. 

Being able to create such vital company functions and processes that lead to a high-performance culture, despite inevitable yet unmeasurable R.I.D change is a critical challenge. That foresight can help deal with it effectively. 

To the success of each of our initiative !