Frost & Sullivan Competitive Intelligence November 2010
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RECOMMENDED READING
Learning from the Future:
Competitive Foresight Scenarios
Edited by Liam Fahey and Robert M. Randall

  Reviewed by Margaret Marshall-Hagan
eBulletin Editor
Frost & Sullivan

In the words of Louis Pasteur more than 100 years ago, "Fortune favors the prepared mind."

To survive in today’s business climate, business leaders must be prepared for the future, and this book does just that. By guiding not just intelligence professionals, but all levels of business managers to imagine the future via a competitive intelligence technique called scenario planning, readers learn to test their current strategic and tactical decisions by anticipating the future, applying their decisions and repositioning their organization to succeed.

Learning from the Future uses competitive foresight scenarios, teaching readers to create multiple potential scenarios against which they test their current business decisions. The authors instruct on how to anticipate the evolution of industries, technologies, mergers, customer behavior, etc. to gain foresight into an organization’s strategic decision-making. Their concept of “foresight methodology” helps the reader take advantage of possible developments to strategically plan and improve the positioning of their organization. This book covers:
  • Basic scenario construction;

  • Applying scenarios to evaluate competitors, technology, corporate policy- and decision-making as well as customer behavior;

  • Preparing your organization to use scenario planning effectively; and

  • Identifying the common pitfalls of scenario planning.
It offers the expertise of 24 of the world’s top scenario developers, including case studies covering a wide array of topics from rapid technology innovation to investment opportunities. Aside from editors Liam Fahey and Robert Randall, experts and authors including Peter Schwartz (The Art of the Long View), Kees van der Heijden (Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation) and Ian Wilson (Scenario Planning Handbook Developing Strategies in Uncertain Times) share their insight and experience. They ask readers to think beyond the routine questions and considerations (what if costs increase? Prices drop?), to consider a broader scope of possibilities. “Organizations must create intellectual and organizational tension around distinctly different views of the future,” touts Oxford University’s Richard Pascale (author of Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead). “Learning from the Future demonstrates why scenarios are ideally suited to generate such tension and how to use scenario learning as a steppingstone to superior strategies.” This book is a must-read for any business manager interested in creating, then exploring the outcomes of various scenarios to learn from the future before it happens and grow their business using Competitive Foresight.
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