INDUSTRY FORESIGHT IS ABOUT REWRITING INDUSTRY RULES AND CREATING NEW COMPETITIVE SPACE, BY HARNESSING DEEP INSIGHTS INTO THE TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY, DEMOGRAPHICS, REGULATION AND LIFESTYLE. IT IS BASED ON A SOLID FACTUAL FOUNDATION.
Building the best possible assumption Base about the future is crucial for competing effectively for industry foresight and developing the prescience needed to proactively shape industry evolution.
To compete effectively for industry foresight is to essentially position one’s company as the leader that influences the direction and shape of industry transformation. Industry foresight paves a way for a company to get to the future first and assume a leadership position. It not only informs the strategic and corporate direction, but it also allows a company to control the evolution of its industry and as a result, its own destiny. Seeing the future before it arrives gives a company the ultimate advantage.
industry foresight gets managers to a good position that enables them to answer the following critical questions: what new types of customer benefits are advantageous to be provided for in five, ten or fifteen years? What new competencies are necessary to be developed or acquired, for offering those benefits to customers? What is the most effective way of reconfiguring the customer interface over the next several years? In the 1970s, at a time when most computers were sequestered in purpose-built rooms deep in the bowels of corporate office buildings, Apple Computer dreamed of a world where every man, woman and child will have a personal computer, an incredible industry foresight at that time. The Apple II, the first truly mass market computer appeared in the wake of this foresight in 1977, four years ahead of the IBM PC. Another industry foresight, getting computers to adapt to people instead of the other way round saw the development of the Lisa, and then the Macintosh.
Industry foresight should not be mistaken for poorly conceived grandiose visions driven by a CEO’s ego. Such ill-conceived visions like Chrysler’s acquisition of an Italian maker of exotic sports cars and a jet aircraft manufacturer, under Lee Iacocca, deserves criticism.
Vision must be accompanied by a sound operational capability for it to be actualized. Without the capacity to execute a foresight, it will count for little. Execution ability alone without industry foresight will not guarantee future success.
When a company cannot get out of operational failure, earlier foresight problems could have a hand in their predicament.
Industry foresight is about rewriting industry rules and creating new competitive space, by harnessing deep insights into the trends in technology, demographics, regulation and lifestyle. It is based on a solid factual foundation.
The vision, industry foresight, a point of view about the future, is often the amalgam of many individual perspectives or vision spread across a company.
