Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA): Impacts on policy and decision making 28th- 29th September 2006 Claudio.

Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology

Analysis (FTA): Impacts on policy and decision making

28th- 29th September 2006

Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology

Analysis (FTA): Impacts on policy and decision making

28th- 29th September 2006

Claudio Roveda and Riccardo Vecchiato

Politecnico di Milano and Fondazione Rosselli

Foresight in Corporate Organizations

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Agenda

• to set up a general framework of industry foresight in relation to the business environment of the firm;• to describe some foresight models (domains, methodology, organizational process, outputs and outcomes in supporting the design of a coordinated multilevel and multiunit strategy) implemented in a sample of large international companies;• to draw some general features of the industry foresight models from these cases and providing some guidelines regarding the implementation of industry foresight.

Paper structure

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Defining the business environment

The micro-environment

Competitors

Customer groups

SuppliersComple-mentary products

Industry customers’

needs

Industry technology

Industry regulation

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Defining the business environment

The macro-environment

Business macroenvironemnt Politics Economics Society Ecology Technology Ecology Society Technology

Business microenvironment Industry Industry Customers’ needs Technology Industry Regulation Industry Regulation

Current competitors

Customers

Suppliers Complementary products

Industry

Newcomers Substitute products

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

• Focus the analysis on the general functions performed by the industry products in relation to its customers’ needs and wants. The cases of:

– Daimler Chrysler: mobility industry; – Nokia: the information and communication industry; – Shell: the energy industry.

• Refer to consumer needs as the cornerstone of the analysis of the business environment of a firm, with the main aim of figuring out how they can evolve, how they can be widened and enriched.

Consumers’ needs as the cornerstone of the analysis

Defining the business environment

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Some models of industry foresight

General classification of foresight activities

Macrolevel

Mesolevel

Microlevel

Politics

Economics

Ecology

Society

Technology

Long term

Medium term

Level of analyisis

Domain

Time horizon

Source: F. Ruff, DaimlerChrysler

Short term

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

The Shell Model

Some models of industry foresight

Source: P. Cornelius, Shell

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

The BASF Model

Some models of industry foresight

Source: K. Heinzelbecker, BASF

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

• foresight fosters the integration and coordination among the various organizational units;

• foresight promotes a shared understanding of the basic drivers of change affecting the whole business;

• foresight is appropriate when the identification of emerging trends able to affect the sources of competition of strategic business units is relatively easy: the critical problem is the assessment of the uncertainty affecting the alternative paths of evolution of these trends and their future likely outcomes.

Some models of industry foresight

The Shell and BASF Models: the major features

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Some models of industry foresight

The Nokia Model

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Some models of industry foresight

The Nokia Model: the major features

• scenarios may be inappropriate when it is necessary and prior to be flexible and react quickly to weak market signals;• in fast changing markets, as the technology and social driven ones, What it does matter are the results of the trend investigation at a macro level of the business environment;• the Nokia World Map provides every business units within the firm the information basis on which the implications of emerging trends for the business areas and investment projects can be assessed with more details.

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Some models of industry foresight

Foresight at Philips and Siemens

• Also at Philips foresight activities aim at identifying disruptive trends by means of an interactive process. Insights about socio-cultural, technological, market and business related trends are integrated and made coherent. • Also at Siemens foresight is conceived as a trend scanning process, with the aim of figuring out the most relevant ones for the company business units. For each business unit, a huge number of potentially relevant trends from the PEEST landscapes are selected and prioritized on the basis of their capability of affecting the target industry.

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Concluding remarks

Some general considerations can be drawn from the case studies of industry foresight, with regards to:

• methodology;• organizational process;• output and impact on strategy and operations.

Foresight in Corporate OrganizationsForesight in Corporate Organizations

Concluding remarks

Organizational process

Bottom-up Top-down

Methodology

Scenario

Focused business/technology firms (political/economical drivers of change)

Trend analysis

Conglomerate firms/ firms with a wide range of (unrelated) business areas

Focused business/technology firms (social/technological drivers of change)

Correlations between methodology and process

Claudio Roveda and Riccardo Vecchiato

[email protected]

Foresight in Corporate Organizations