Real Time Strategy by Schühly Andreas; Becker Frank; Klein Florian

Author:Schühly, Andreas; Becker, Frank; Klein, Florian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2020-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

MONITORING SCENARIOS WITH CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY

Often, we are surprised by the news that appear to be sudden. Something has happened that we could not conceive of before. Yet very frequently, these events have their roots in the past, roots that we can trace when looking closely enough at the ground. Monitoring is, therefore, an important part of scenario planning.

After we have developed the scenarios and outlined possible strategic options, it would be wrong to archive them in some drawer; rather, they should be actively monitored to know which scenario is the closest to the actual course of history. A sound strategy process is no substitute for insights. To gain those insights, it is vital to identify indicators that express key developments and dynamics. This mechanism will help an organisation track shifts in the competitive environment and the surrounding world and adjust its strategy accordingly. As the world is in motion, so should be the strategy. Once the implications that hold true for most of the plausible scenarios have been derived, understood well and are combined with the predetermined elements that are serious enough to consider, an organisation can act with confidence in the future and make well-informed decisions. Nonetheless, there will certainly be numerous implications an organisation chooses not to act upon, as they are depending on the future evolving in a certain direction. There will also be significant drivers that, although currently uncertain, have the possibility to becoming certain – or predetermined. To deal with this situation, a monitoring system helps identify and track indicators showing if a specific scenario is starting to materialise, leading to some implications to grow in significance and some uncertainties to become predetermined elements.25

Many strategy processes include monitoring of indicators; however, these are very narrow, focus mostly on the specific strategy, and therefore ignored as weak signals that partly lie beyond the strategy’s horizon. Indicators can take the form of current events or plausible future signposts that present potentially significant change. The best scenario approaches and monitoring systems employ both. This can either be obvious, such as debated change in regulatory frameworks, or may be a subtle indication of a major change in society, like an increase in voluntary work. Some are easy to observe, for example economic data for economic trends, such as gross domestic product for economic development or Gini26 coefficient for inequality. They are quantified and therefore easy to measure. However, some drivers are more difficult to measure as they are more of a qualitative nature, for example social behaviour changes, and thus it requires some time and effort to identify key indicators that enable the monitoring of these trends. Once we have identified them, we can track them to pinpoint when a particular scenario seems to be unfolding in the real world. In case the indicators are chosen prudently and imaginatively, they can assist as dominant signals that are necessary to adopt a strategy to the shifting environment. However, one needs to differentiate those signals from all the noise surrounding them.

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