What is Future Foresight?

Future Foresight is a method that helps your organization navigate through today's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA world). To successfully sail through today's VUCA world, factors that potentially affect the future – so-called drivers - must be identified. This reduces the noise around big buzzwords and helps focus on what really matters while expanding your horizon. To further reduce the noise around big buzzwords, an analysis on a driver-overarching level – also called trends – needs to be performed. Since decision-makers and stakeholders are exposed to this VUCA world, one fact can be derived: Change is the only reliable constant for the future.

Every decision affects the future. Short-time focus in decision-making can have significant negative consequences. Thus, long-term future-proof strategies are required, which enable your organization to capture both arising challenges and opportunities. By using 4 interconnectable modules, we enable your organization to plan your journey ahead strategically.

What are Drivers?

Driving forces, also called drivers, are variables that have the potential to affect the future. Drivers can already be established or emerge over time. Furthermore, drivers can be interlinked and affect each other. They originate from social, technological, ecological, economic, political and legal (STEEPL) categories. However, how do we detect relevant drivers? Our comprehensive 3-level analysis combines disruptive AI-based research with traditional desk research and expert interviews. This methodology enables us to obtain a holistic overview of all relevant drivers.

What are Trends?

While individual drivers can be essential for long-term strategy making, trends represent a driver-overarching analysis level that helps us reduce the complexity even further. Cross-sectoral trends are derived by clustering linked and interconnected drivers.

Future Foresight Modules

Often, traditional business methodologies, such as quantitative forecasting, are ill-equipped to capture today's uncertainty and the existing complexity. Our 4 innovative Future Foresight modules support stakeholders in engaging in long-term thinking at a time where focusing on the short-term can be fatal. All modules are interconnectable in a multitude of ways depending on your organization's individual project goal, scope and focus.

360° Trendscaping:

We will develop an individualized holistic landscape of future variables surrounding your organization and document their impact on your ecosystem. This individual map of driving forces and trends helps your organization make strategic planning significantly more forward-looking and future-proof.

Wild Card Futureproofing:

Often, low probability high impact events ("wild cards") cause the biggest turbulences for your organization. Using prevalent Foresight methodologies, we develop a chart of potential wild cards on a predefined general, sector-specific or individual level. Wild Card Futureproofing supports your organization in defining vulnerabilities and risks to significantly increase your resilience to system-changing turbulences.

Future Foresight Factory:

Reactions to future events require an agile and innovative but constructive and thought-through response. The Future Foresight Factory provides a custom-made interactive digital or physical format to engage with the future and the uncertainty around it. Bringing together tried and tested Future Foresight methodologies and innovative tools, we enable stringently and clear out-of-the-box future thinking in a stimulating environment. This way, you can spotlight the most relevant future developments and their implications for your organization to determine strategic pathways.

Future Benchmarking and Roadmapping:

With the myriad of fast-paced future developments, making informed choices on future priorities is difficult. However, the risk of making uncalculated choices is high. Future benchmarking and roadmapping provide a Future Maturity Assessment that gives you concrete insights into where your organization stands in regard to the market and relevant future developments. Being equipped with a future readiness barometer based on key future indicators and a resulting future roadmap, allows your organization to set the direction you want to move in for a successful future.

While all these modules individually help prepare your organization for what is to come, they unfold their full potential when combined. In cooperation with Deloitte's Center for the Long View (CLV), our scenario analysis experts can further support you to develop scenario-based future-proof strategies.

All listed scenario analysis projects were conducted in cooperation with the Center for the Long View.

The future is not predetermined but evolves dynamically. Our Future Foresight offerings prepare you for future turbulence. Additionally, Deloitte's scenario experts from the CLV can support you to explore a range of plausible and alternative developments and empower you to build future-proof strategies. Please get in touch with us if you would like to learn more about our services.

Your Contacts

Max Kaiser
Senior Manager | Cyber & Strategic Risk
mkaiser@deloitte.de
+49 40 32080 4017