Foresight
Nowadays doing business and operating successfully gets more difficult and demanding. The global economy and working environment increase in complexity so that adequate decision making for future actions gets more important but simultaneously more challenging as well. Firms attempt to predict the future company situation and general trends in order to respond to coming changes timely. The overall goal is to stay competitive and prosperous both in the short and in the long run (see Ullrich, 2009, p. vii).
One instrument which shall simplify and optimize the process of forecasting prospective events is called strategic foresight. It is meant to enable a meaningful preparation for an uncertain future. However, to ensure an useful implementation and application of this management instrument it is necessary that a very accurate adaption to the company specific factors such as long-term strategy takes place beforehand (see Müller et al., 2009, p. V).
Strategic foresight is closely related to strategic management functions: they both have the purpose to observe and analyze the company environment. This concerns the market situation and current and potential competition on the one hand. Involved are several parties such as customers, suppliers or employees. One the other hand, strategic management and foresight both deal with general conditions as well. Examples are the current economic situation, technological development or social conditions. The observation of the just mentioned factors serves only one cause: the making of assumptions about future states and the taking of useful decisions which lead into a successful future (see Müller et al., 2009, p. 11). According to Horton (1999) in Müller et al. (2009), the foresight process which results in future-oriented decisions consists of three determined steps. The first one involves research activities including the collection and evaluation of information. By this step, knowledge should be generated. In the second
One instrument which shall simplify and optimize the process of forecasting prospective events is called strategic foresight. It is meant to enable a meaningful preparation for an uncertain future. However, to ensure an useful implementation and application of this management instrument it is necessary that a very accurate adaption to the company specific factors such as long-term strategy takes place beforehand (see Müller et al., 2009, p. V).
Strategic foresight is closely related to strategic management functions: they both have the purpose to observe and analyze the company environment. This concerns the market situation and current and potential competition on the one hand. Involved are several parties such as customers, suppliers or employees. One the other hand, strategic management and foresight both deal with general conditions as well. Examples are the current economic situation, technological development or social conditions. The observation of the just mentioned factors serves only one cause: the making of assumptions about future states and the taking of useful decisions which lead into a successful future (see Müller et al., 2009, p. 11). According to Horton (1999) in Müller et al. (2009), the foresight process which results in future-oriented decisions consists of three determined steps. The first one involves research activities including the collection and evaluation of information. By this step, knowledge should be generated. In the second