In a VUCA world, organisations can't afford to be complacent and avoid changes if they want to stay ahead of the curve. However, they shouldn't make abrupt decisions or aimlessly follow every change either. In this piece, Jari Koskinen explains why organisations need to have foresight and change capabilities in the decision-making process.

Dr. John Geis is the Director of Airpower Research Task Force for Air University. He came to the Strategic Foresight Summit to talk about the alternate futures work he has done for the U.S. Air Force since the 1990s. “My goal is to show that these alternate futures analyses have a way of doing pretty well,” said Geis.

Retail has become a digital experience, far more optimized, quick, and personalized. That's not to say that physical retail is disappearing - far from that. In this article, we look at the future of retail through technology, business and value chains, the service industry, values and social responsibility, and the global economy.

Key Success Factors of a Foresight ProgramA good foresight program doesn't pop out of anywhere. Organisations that wish to understand the future and prepare for it need a good program in place.

Successful foresight activities must answer: What are the alternative futures the organization faces? How likely are the different futures to unfold? And, given the options, what actions can the organization take to achieve its goals? Foresight analysis, when correctly done, has many proven benefits for businesses and organisations across all industries.

The big cities of the 2020s are a fascinating market for innovations across all walks of life. Let's look at 22 trends that will likely make impacts on the future of cities. In this study, we use a comprehensive foresight tool to set up a process of anticipating changes.

Soile Ollila is the Foresight Manager at Business Finland, which focuses on offering a service path for customers in Finland and abroad in innovation funding, internationalisation, and investments.

Jussi Leskinen, Director of Customer Experience Management and Operations at Lindström, and Mika Raulas, Business Designer at Roger Studio, took the stage to discuss using strategic foresight to design future customer experiences.

We've already covered here what Strategic Foresight is and why it matters. But below, we take it a step further. Why it is actually critical for organizations, especially today, and what outcomes you can expect from systematic foresight activity.

Scenario planning can be used for engagement, which means building bridges and forming collaborations. The focus is on influencing and communicating. “During a big merger between companies, they disagreed on everything but then did a scenario exercise to start working together and exploring the future,” Drenth cites an example.

We like to say that artificial intelligence, for all its advantages, cannot do all that we can. And that's true. But if debating with other human was one of those things, IBM's Project Debater shows that it keeps sneaking into human territory.

Foresight is becoming a more disciplined activity in organizations as changes are happening on a faster pace and with a broader and deeper impact than ever before. “To ensure continued growth and success, organizations need to adapt to the future or at best, be a part of shaping it,” Vaarnas says.