Bringing the future into sharper focus

…so my team and I figure out what’s possible from all futures. Imagine you’re a CEO and your company is at a pivotal movement. You need to think about your long-term choices. But you want to make sure the choices you’re making today will prevail and thrive in five to ten years – that’s where my team come in. We start with the possible, then what’s probable, what’s plausible and then – the really important part – what’s preferable. That brings it back to the present so we can talk about where to focus time and money to make sure the bets you’re making today pay off in multiple futures. It’s a science and an art.

…it made me think about how futures could be different. And I’ve always enjoyed travelling through time, mentally, whether that’s visiting a new museum, country or going to an antiques shop. I love learning about the behaviours, traditions and shortcuts we humans have developed. A lot of futurists secretly want to be historians because the future doesn’t repeat, but it can rhyme. Professionally I’ve always worked in innovation and strategy, which requires you to think and prepare for the long term. I have a lot of experience with emerging tech (I was studying generative AI before it was cool). All of that’s helped in this role: futurism is really a way to engage with uncertainty and wrestle with it.

…so it’s even more important to look ahead. There’s the climate crisis, geopolitical uncertainty, rapid advancement in tech and shifting demographics. Government agencies and businesses can’t just go on thinking, ‘I can extrapolate these things and continue with assumptions we hold today’. It’s about understanding the critical uncertainties. If you’re in energy, for example, you’re facing two big questions; are there going to be multiple energy alternatives or something more monolithic? And will there be infrastructure that’ll work across geographies and energy types, or will it be fragmented? So, what could you do so that, regardless of those answers, you’ll be successful? We help clients face these critical uncertainties. That’s why board members like us because we’re bold and brave, challenging the exec team and making sure they don’t get complacent.

…and ever since it launched in November 2022, clients – even non-technical ones – have been asking about Gen AI. Their first question was, how’s it different to conventional AI; then, what are the applications and where can it be used? Now clients understand it’s going to change the world they want to know the business implications and return on investment. What can my company do with Gen AI that was just not possible until now? And that’s a varied question because it could be a hotel chain, or a fine jewellery company or a clinical team at a healthcare practice – they’re asking very precise things. So we need an imaginative, multidisciplinary Futures and Foresight team with deep expertise, that can collaborate with our innovation, strategy, design, data science practitioners along with experts from sectors such as private equity, to answer them. We’re most successful when we bring all those perspectives.

…but it’s just one example. There are so many others at play that in five to ten years FTSE 500 companies and government agencies will invest in foresight practitioners, doubling down and building dedicated capabilities. Futures and foresight will become even more important in how businesses are run. For us, at Deloitte, that’s not new. Our company is over 175 years old so naturally, we’ve had to think about the future. It’s in our DNA but now we’re bringing new focus and dedication to it.