The Strategic Thinker
PURE & SIMPLESM Advice To Gain Supremacy Of Your Sandbox
Issue 5/09:
Strategize for the Future,
Not the Present
More and more CEOs with whom we
work tell us that it is not possible to
predict the future, and it is therefore impossible to
create a strategy for that future because changes are occurring
faster and faster. Computer and biomedical technology, and
political and economic conditions, to name a few factors, are
changing faster and in more unexpected ways than ever before.
As a result, many claim, no one can keep up with—much less
predict—what else will happen in the future. To some extent,
they are right.
Although this claim is partly true, the notion that change
happens too quickly to be anticipated is somewhat of a myth.
Our experience leads us to a different hypothesis.
In our view, there are two modes to deal with changes:
proactively or reactively. Many executives deal with most
changes in a reactive mode. Their skill is corrective in nature
rather than being proactive or anticipatory. Proof of this is in the
pudding. If their key skill was anticipatory, why were the CEOs
and senior executives of thousands of corporations around the
world caught by surprise by the advent of the Internet? We
believe they just weren’t looking. The Internet had been around
for years.
We also contend that by using the following methodology,
not only can you predict the future in your competitive
landscape, you must predict it or your company will inevitably
become a dinosaur.
ENVISION THE FUTURE
“How can anyone anticipate what the future will look like?
The future is a big place, and no one has a crystal ball.” This is
usually the statement we hear immediately after we offer the
above hypothesis. In fact, this reaction is
understandable, yet our premise has a very The good news
simple and rational explanation. It has been is that you don't
shown that many things that look big and
complex at first glance turn out to be an need a guru to
assembly of a limited number of smaller predict the
elements with a limited range of variables future
when scrutinized more closely.
© 2009 DECISION PROCESSES INTERNATIONAL ASIA PRIVATE LIMITED
Address: 1 Sophia, #04-16 Peace Centre, Singapore 228149 Tel: 6235 1733 Fax: 6336 8022 Email: enquiries@dpi-asia.com
Asian Site : www.dpi-asia.com Asian Blog : dpi-asia.blogspot.com Global Site : www.decisionprocesses.com
SM
In reality, the future business arena (or "sandbox," as we at
DPI refer to it) in which any company will compete down the
road consists of 12 discrete compartments from which disruptive
trends, or indications of the future, might emerge:
• Economic/Monetary Trends
• Political/Regulatory Trends
• Social/Demographic Trends
• Market Conditions/Trends
• Customer Attributes/Habits
• Competitor Profiles/Mix
• Technology Evolution
• Manufacturing Capabilities/Processes
• Product Design/Content
• Sales/Marketing Methods
• Distribution Methods/Systems
• Resources—Natural/Human/Financial
Once the complexity of the Future Business Arena has been
deciphered into these 12 "building blocks," one can begin to
anticipate what the future will look like. By placing yourself, and
your key executives, in a "time machine" and moving yourself
ahead x years and describing the characteristics you believe
each compartment will have at that time, you will have a very
good "picture" of the future.
Then comes the next objection: "We don't have any futurists
in our company. How can we foresee changes that will occur in
the future?" The good news is that you don't need a guru to
predict the future. Our contention is that most changes that will
impact your business 10 years from now are in place in some
form today. Most changes that will affect a company announce
themselves well in advance of the time they will strike.
DECODING THE FUTURE TODAY
Naturally, one can’t be 100 percent right about the
future, and totally unexpected events do show up. But, if
one knows where to look, one can decode the future
today. Our thesis says that the future is not one place,
but a collection of five places where you can get a
glimpse of the future that lies ahead.
 Your future lies hidden in these five "futures":
1. The Future Ahead
2. The Future Beyond
3. The Future Behind
4. The Future Around
5. The Future Beside
The Future Ahead
This "future ahead" is a future that has already started but not
yet arrived. Like a train, it has already left the station but has not
yet arrived at its final destination. However, because it is moving
along a set of rails the direction of which is pre-established, one
can determine its eventual destination.
This future ahead comes with a predetermined set of "rails"
which allows one to foresee the eventual outcome. In fact, the
future ahead comes on two sets of predictable "rails":
• The future that can be projected by
extrapolating current phenomena
• The future that is branching along two or more
sets of paths or "rails"
Let's look at them one at a time. The first is the future ahead
that can be projected, or predicted reasonably accurately,
because it is an extrapolation of current and predictable
phenomenon. An example is demographics. Singapore has one
of the fastest ageing populations in the world. There are an
estimated 300,000 people over the age of 65. This figure is
projected to quadruple over the next two decades.
The second type of future ahead is the one that has started
but is branching along two or more "sets of rails" or paths. As a
result, its eventual destination, or outcome, is projectable but not
totally predictable because the path that will eventually win out
is not yet known. However, being able to project two possible
outcomes is better than projecting 20 or no outcomes. An
example of the "branching" future in today’s context would be
the battle over eBooks’ readers. Clearly amazon.com’s Kindle,
Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and the likes of Sony’s Reader are in the
fray at this moment.
Another example that has not yet played itself out might be
the electric/gasoline hybrid ear versus the hydrogen fuel-cell car
versus the gasoline-powered car. The political and
environmental problems associated with burning hydrocarbons
and the need for alternatives are obvious. But what branch will
the future ahead follow—and how might that and other related
changes affect your business?
This "future ahead" is a future that has
already started but not yet arrived. Like a
train, it has already left the station but has
not yet arrived at its final destination
© 2009 DECISION PROCESSES INTERNATIONAL ASIA PRIVATE LIMITED
Address: 1 Sophia, #04-16 Peace Centre, Singapore 228149 Tel: 6235 1733 Fax: 6336 8022 Email: enquiries@dpi-asia.com
Asian Site : www.dpi-asia.com Asian Blog : dpi-asia.blogspot.com Global Site : www.decisionprocesses.com
The Future Beyond
The future beyond the future ahead is one that is projectable
because it comes with some predictable boundaries. In other
words, this event or trend comes with some known constraints
that will make its eventual outcome almost predictable.
An example in retrospect would be Airbus's announcement
then hat it would construct a Super Jumbo airplane. Without
much effort, Boeing could quite accurately project the size of
that aircraft and the number of passengers it would carry. The
laws of physics have already determined that data. The laws of
physics have determined that if the aircraft travels at higher than
Mach 1 speed, the windows will shatter. Therefore, it would
have to travel at slightly less than Mach 1 speed. At that speed,
the optimum fuel-to-weight ratio would limit the size of the
aircraft to approximately 800 passengers. Without any
"guessing," this future beyond can be quite accurately projected
since it comes with known constraints, or boundaries.
The Future Behind What can one learn
What can one learn about
about the future by
the future by looking at the looking at the "future
"future behind"? The answer is behind"? The answer
simple: History repeats itself.
The future behind is one that
is simple: History
happened in the past, yet it repeats itself.
provides a template for the
interpretation of current events that will have future implications.
By looking at the future behind, one can learn about the
behavior of past events or trends. As Andrew Grove, ex-CEO of
Intel, once said: "If you want to know what will happen in the
technology in the next 10 years, simply look at what has
happened in the last 10 years."
One repeating phenomenon we can learn from is that of
"disruptive technologies" that gather so much inertia that a
temporary crash will not stop their momentum. Eventually, after
an initial frenzy of speculation and a “bubble burst," they come
roaring back. The following paragraphs give some examples.
In the mid-1700s there was a canal mania in Europe, with
hundreds of companies building canals all over Europe. Then,
suddenly the bubble burst and many declared it a commercial
disaster. Yet, 10 years later there were almost five times as many
canals as there were before the crash. Canals became the
backbone of commerce in Europe, and that inertia made the
canal phenomenon unstoppable until years later when the
railroads came along.
In the mid-1800s in the United Kingdom, a rail mania took
place. Hundreds of companies were laying down hundreds of
miles of rails across the country. Huge and, it turns out, highly
speculative investments were made. Again, the bubble burst and
fortunes were lost, yet 10 years later there were thousands of
miles more rails in use than there were before the crash. Like the
canals before them, rails eventually became the backbone of the
industrial revolution, and their inertia made that trend
unstoppable until the advent of cars and trucks.

At the beginning of 20th century in the United States there
were over 100 manufacturers producing a few thousand cars.
Then suddenly the industry crashed and most of the early
producers went out of business. Yet, some 15 years later, there
were half a dozen companies producing over a million cars per
year. The introduction of the automobile was an event that came
with so much inertia that it was unstoppable.
What recent innovation, which has recently had a setback,
but will coming roaring back? Right. The Internet! The Internet is
a technology with so much inertia that it will eventually change
the modus operandi of every company in the world. In fact, it's
happening right now, and its impact will gradually increase for
the foreseeable future, just like the canal, the railroad, and the
automobile did in the past.
Looking at the future behind can give us great insights about
the future ahead. What changes or trends that are happening in
your sandbox today might have blueprints in the past to help
you to see where they might be going?
The Future Around
The "future around" is one that is already present in your
sandbox but is not yet fully deployed. These are events or trends
that are in your sandbox and will amplify over time. If you have
not taken stock of these events, they will catch you by surprise
and bite you badly. An example is the work going on in the area
of human genomes. No pharmaceutical company in the world
can afford to ignore the developments occurring in this area of
their sandbox, as they will dramatically change the nature of
their future products. Another similar area of development is
bioelectronics—the convergence of biological and electronic
and even mechanical technologies. What about “clean”
technologies?
© 2009 DECISION PROCESSES INTERNATIONAL ASIA PRIVATE LIMITED
Address: 1 Sophia, #04-16 Peace Centre, Singapore 228149 Tel: 6235 1733 Fax: 6336 8022 Email: enquiries@dpi-asia.com
Asian Site : www.dpi-asia.com Asian Blog : dpi-asia.blogspot.com Global Site : www.decisionprocesses.com
The Future Beside
The fifth type of future you will encounter consists of events
or trends already in place in adjacent sandboxes that will
eventually migrate into yours—the "future beside."
Unfortunately, these sandboxes are probably not on your current
radar screen and if you haven't spotted them, they will catch you
by surprise when they arrive.
Social networking sites such as Facebook & Twitter have
taken the world by storm. Of greater significance is the fact that
they have proven to be effective marketing tools for consumer
goods. NGOs and other non-profit organizations are increasingly
leveraging on these social networking sites. Any guesses on the
industries that would leverage on them next?
Exploring adjacent sandboxes for events that are happening
there will enable you to quickly assess the ability of these events
to migrate into yours and, more importantly, enable you to take
actions to manage and/or control these events to your
advantage.
FIVE PLACES TO LOOK
FOR THE FUTURE
It is in these five places—the futures ahead, beyond, behind,
around, and beside—that the future stalks and may spring into
your sandbox and catch your unprepared. Or, if you look, you
may discover opportunities that others have not yet recognized.
And that brings us to a wise quote from one of our clients:
You can’t predict the future, but you can prepare
for and control the future.