5 Long Term Effects of Foresight Activities in an Organisation

What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind, of sacrificing one’s ease or vanity, or uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully.
- Victor Cherbuliez

It has been long debated if there is a return on investment for organizations to adopt foresight activities. Well here are five tangible and intangible outcomes of establishing foresight activities within your organization.

Profits and Revenue

Despite what might seem like a deep and scary hole of sunk costs, if done correctly, then foresight activities can have a huge impact on your organization. A study in 2018, matching mega data between 2008 and 2015(7 year period), firms having established foresight activities outperformed the average by 33% higher profitability, and 200% in growth. Firms without any foresight activities had the opposite effect.

Increased Risk Awareness

If you asked a Fortune 500 firm in 1955 where they would be today, what do you think they would say? In longevity study, Fortune 500 companies in 1955 are most likely non-existent or not in the list anymore. Only 60 companies remain on this list today! What warning system do you have in place that tells you, you’re about to be disrupted. The least foresight activities can do for your organization is to prepare you for impending risks constantly heading for you and in many instances ultimately futureproofing yourself.

Breaking Down Barriers

Foresight often takes a creative input on potential futures. Depending on how far in future you look, it assumes thing that may seem farfetched today will be solved in the future. This brings out of the box thinking into the picture and breaks down biases and dominant logic, it releases you for constraints of today. This kind of thinking will have a positive cultural shift in the decision-making process of the organization.

Broadened Knowledge

Because foresight requires employees to take an understanding of a domain that may not necessarily be within their own specialty, the research will give them a better understanding of the field in general. Politics and policies can play a big part in the progression of your industry and firm. The broadening of knowledge also allows the organization to connect the dots better in different domains finding the right balance for direction.

Strategic Vision

With a clearer picture of the future, the easier it is for you to maneuver around the future landscape. This means foreseeing any competitive threats such as the Netflix example from the previous article and taking the necessary precautions today, or even dictating the landscape your competition get there.

This is only an overview of some long term effects of foresight activities on your organization. As mentioned, it gives at least futureproofing capabilities and active offensive measure to increase growth and profits.

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