Look to the future to hedge your bets

Futurology sometimes gets a bad name. The name itself doesn’t help. People immediately think of hoverboards or flying cars but forget that looking ahead can help your business develop strategy, prioritise effort correctly and stay alive.

So for the sake of avoiding eye roll, let’s focus on ‘trend analysis’ rather than futurology. Focusing on emerging trends can help businesses to ‘hedge their bets’ when planning medium to long term strategy. It can also keep you ahead of competition and identify opportunities for innovation. Just remember how Nokia moved from making paper to making phones.

And the best bit about it all? You just need access to the internet.

If there was ever a case for desk research then trend analysis is it. Of course you can pay for specialists to tell you what the future might hold, but you can just as easily find some illuminating answers yourself.

On a recent project we set out to identify some of the core social, economic and tech trends that might have a bearing on our client’s future strategy. There was talk of the ‘death of email’ together with the supplanting of text with voice. Of course both proved unlikely in the research we conducted.

So how do you start researching the future?

1. See what everyone else is talking about — whether it’s the Financial Times or Google News, trend reports are easy to come by. They’ll often give you a set 10–15 trends that are already well advanced on the hype curve. They’ll probably include things like cryptocurrency, voice activated interfaces, Universal Basic Income (UBI), AI, VR and so much more. Each trend will be at a different stage of development and some might have a fair whiff of doubt about them. Bitcoin is currently in that box.
2. Rank and sort based on impact and probability — sort the trends you’ve identified based on where they are on the hype curve i.e. close to mainstream or still in the clouds and how big the impact might be on your business. If you’re a bank, UBI will have a significant impact on your business, but it’s still only being explored in pilots and has significant political enemies. Then look at probability i.e. how likely the trend is to go mainstream. Car makers such as VW and Ford will have done a similar assessment a few years ago when Tesla started to explore electric vehicles.
3. Extrapolate trends — take voice activated home devices for example. Right now Amazon Echo and Google Home are good at answering questions. In future they will be able to engage in handling longer conversational requests. Today you can ask about a flight but soon you’ll be able to book a ticket, re-arrange an in-flight meal and book an Uber all in one simple conversation. Take a trend and image where it will go.
4. Take a pinch of salt — when looking at trends don’t imagine trends that just kill off what they’re trying to replace. Everyone made the mistake of thinking the kindle would kill off bookstores. Things now look very different with the rise of independent book stores and Amazon’s foray into bricks and mortar. The same can be said with Elon Musk and his belief that private transport will kill off public transport. There’s a failure to see that emerging trends, more often than not, simply introduce new ways of doing things. If you look at the growth of email, there’s plenty to suggest that by 2021 email will still be growing albeit by a small amount.

5. Challenge Doubt

With any trend work you’ll have your doubters who can’t imagine a future world where factories have no humans or planes land without a pilot. With any trend work include your case studies. This works really well when people challenge only to see the future is already being implemented by a competitor or another business.

For those of you thinking about voice killing off text it’s important to remember what makes human’s tick. Few want to walk down the street talking to a supermarket about home delivery.

Looking out for and observing trends is an important task if you’re to ensure your business is to stay ahead of the pack. There’s a danger is getting carried away with flying cars when there are closer trends that could knock you off your perch.

At Strategy Activist we help clients navigate the future to ensure they are still relevant 50 years from now. To learn more about how we can help visit www.strategyactivsit.com or call +44 7786063053.