This service helps our clients to introduce a process for developing effective business strategies underpinned by sound long-term technology choices. What we deliver can include a viable business and technology strategy based on transparency of the business and technology environment, the identification of new business opportunities, an evaluation of the firm’s technology capabilities and the development of creative business and technology scenarios.
FutureWorlds
PA has developed FutureWorlds to help organizations build a coherent view of the future, to drive innovation and strategic decision-making. The FutureWorlds process combines insight-led scenarios with real technology content to:
- inspire companies to think about how the future will impact their business
- provide a forum and common language to enable marketing and technology teams to innovate
- create alternative future scenarios driven by key business issues
- promote innovative thinking to link consumer needs to enabling technologies at an early stage
- identify future market triggers to stimulate creation of a robust technology strategy.
PA’s FutureWorlds approach enables people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to understand how the future will affect their organisation, and to align their various perspectives into a shared vision.
Scenario planning
This technique is particularly effective for helping to reach consensus on future market and technology needs. It was first developed in the oil industry for long-term strategic planning, and PA has adapted it to help technology-based companies think outside the constraints of their current business environment.
The fundamental principle of scenario planning is that the future is not predictable, but that it is possible to differentiate between what it very likely and what is fundamentally uncertain. The scenario planning process involves the generation of a small number of extreme but nevertheless realistic ‘stories’ about the future. These stories illuminate the possible paths, clearly distinguishing between the relevant and the irrelevant, and between the inevitable and the uncertain. They are used to build and communicate a firm-wide consensus on the range of futures to which the strategy must be robust.
Technology roadmapping
The phrase ‘technology roadmap’ has been widely used in recent years for almost any description – usually graphical but sometimes even verbal – of the expected evolution of a technology area. PA uses the phrase much more precisely, to describe a specific graphical tool which we have developed. It is driven by business goals. PA’s roadmaps bring together business goals with technology capabilities and knowledge.
By focusing on what the business wants to achieve within the different scenarios, a ‘map’ of the different technologies needed to reach that business goal can be created. The map shows how different technologies need to be combined and packaged to meet the business goal. The map will also show that it is possible to reach the same business goal by different routes (by using different technologies). In most cases, one single route will not be the optimum solution, and a combination of routes will need to be chosen.
For more information telephone +44 1763 267492 or email innovation@paconsulting.com
