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Trends - Risks and Opportunities

Written by: Helene Mazur

Article Overview: Improve important management decisions- with a forward-looking strategic framework that takes into account marketplace trends.

Trends - Risks and Opportunities

What technology should we invest in this year? Which product or services should we be looking to enhance? What initiatives are a better use of our time and money? How do you prioritize?

Making important decisions about how best to spend money and time can be stressful and confusing. The strategic planning process is designed to help you make difficult choices within a framework of a 3-5 year plan. The framework involves looking at both internal and external factors in order to design strategies that take advantage of opportunities, while minimizing risks.

A central part of the strategic planning process involves developing a set of key assumptions to serve as a reference when creating forward-thinking strategies. These assumptions come from looking at data and researching trends.

By understanding the changes that are developing in the marketplace, you become less vulnerable to short term events and opinions. By positioning in alignment with the trends in your industry, in your customer's industries, and in the world in general you have a much better chance of success.

Futurists

"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. -- Warren G. Bennis

There are many sources of information about future trends. As you read and listen to the people around you, you will find a lot to think about.

In "The Strategic Human Resource Leader" William Rothwell, Robert Prescott and Maria Taylor, talk about six key trends shaping the future: changing technology, increasing globalization, continuing cost containment, increasing speed to market, the growing importance of knowledge capital and the magnitude of change will shape our future.

It is always fun to read Faith Popcorn. In her newest offbeat book "Dictionary of the Future" authored with Adam Hanft, they cleverly coin terms that are designed to express what the world is about to become. While the book is a bit far out, the underlying truths are insightful.

Karl Albrecht in his book "Corporate Radar: Tracking the Forces That Are Shaping Your Business" has developed a formal system for collecting the strategic data that he believes everyone in business should examine. Four of the eight categories he details in the book are:

The customer environment-demographic and psychographics about current and potential customers (wants, needs, habits, values)
The competitor environment - motives, strengths, weaknesses, current and potential behaviors of those who compete for your customer's resources
The social environment- cultural patterns, values, beliefs, trends, styles, preferences, heroes and villains that form the reference for people's behaviors
The geophysical environment-the physical surroundings of the business, resources, population, susceptibility to natural disasters, crime, etc.
Fast Forward

Historic trends in fashion and social acceptability have had a dramatic influence on the garment and tobacco industry. Look at your business and start thinking about the future trends. Think about the following questions:

What will our industry be like in 3-5 years? - What will our customer's industry be like in 3-5 years?
What potential opportunities and risks are inherent in these trends?
How can these changes influence the products or services I offer?
If you are prepared, you can outdistance your competitors by addressing customer requirements faster than they will. Start to align with the future by determining where there are gaps between the current skills, focus and activities in your business with future trends.

" My interest is in the future because I will be spending the rest of my life there."
Charles Kettering

"Charles F. Kettering was a "screwdriver and pliers" inventor who, even today, continues to impact all aspects of our society. At his death in 1958, Kettering was a co-holder of more than 140 patents and possessed honorary doctorates from nearly 30 universities. Kettering believed strongly in the combination of hard work, ingenuity and technology to make the world a better place."

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Article Tags: management decisions, marketplace trends, rishs in planning, strategic planning, trends



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