Strategic Foresight Guide: How to Stay Ahead and Plan Future Success

Over 85% of executives say their industries will be disrupted in the next five years, yet many companies still rely on short-term planning. Strategic foresight helps organizations anticipate change, spot opportunities, and reduce risk.

Instead of reacting to disruptions, foresight enables the identification of signals of change early, providing the opportunity for innovation and growth. Without anticipating the future, organizations risk falling behind. Those who integrate foresight into their strategy can make informed decisions, stay agile, and turn uncertainty into an advantage. 

This guide will explore the key concepts and tools of strategic foresight and provide practical guidance on integrating those into your foresight program.

Understanding strategic foresight and its importance

In an unpredictable world, organizations must go beyond short-term planning to remain competitive. Strategic foresight helps organizations anticipate probable futures, identify new trends, and prepare for multiple possibilities. It is a proactive, systematic approach that enables firms to shape desired futures rather than simply reacting to change.

By integrating foresight into decision-making, organizations gain insight into emerging risks and opportunities. This allows them to innovate, build resilience, and navigate uncertainty with confidence. Embedding foresight in core business teams is crucial for long-term success and sustainable growth.

What is strategic foresight? A practical definition

Strategic foresight is a structured approach to anticipate and prepare for changes in the firm's environment. Based on analyzing probable future consequences, companies plan action to prepare today for their future. Uncertainty drives strategic foresight and requires a systematic foresight process to distinguish noise and insight.

The strategic foresight methods help organizations explore possibilities and develop strategies that align with their desired futures. Unlike traditional planning, strategic foresight does not assume stability. It considers disruptions, new trends, and technological advancements that could reshape industries.

By applying foresight systematically, organizations gain insight into potential risks and opportunities before they emerge.

How strategic foresight differs from traditional forecasting

Traditional forecasting relies on past data to predict what is likely to happen. It assumes that historical patterns will continue, making it useful for short-term planning. However, this approach often fails when dealing with high uncertainty or unprecedented shifts in the world.

Strategic foresight, on the other hand, embraces uncertainty. It explores multiple trend developments, allowing organizations to assess the importance of each trend relative to their strategies continuously. This continuous foresight is a constant process that informs business units, strategy teams, and product development about important drivers of change

This forward-looking approach enables businesses to prepare in advance, remain agile, and be responsive to new trends.

What makes strategic foresight important for long-term business success

Strategic foresight is important because it helps businesses stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment. Companies that fail to anticipate change risk becoming obsolete, while those that embrace foresight can drive innovation and growth.

By identifying new trends early, businesses can develop forward-thinking strategies. This approach also allows organizations to create desired futures and plan backward the actions needed to land in this desired future.

If done rightly, foresight also helps organizations mitigate risks and seize emerging opportunities before competitors. Foresight-driven companies build resilience. Instead of being caught off guard by disruptions, they adapt strategies as change in the world emerges.

The role of future planning in strategic decision-making

Future planning is essential for organizations that want to remain relevant. Strategic foresight provides a complete horizon view, helping leaders see beyond today's products and services and prepare for what lies ahead. This proactive approach fosters the early sensing of future opportunities and makes innovation an integral part of strategy planning.

Decision-making based on foresight is more informed and adaptable. Instead of relying solely on gut feelings, leaders integrate insight from multiple sources, including, new trends, technological developments, regulations, and start-up ideas. This holistic horizon scan helps organizations to not be disrupted, but be the spearhead of future trends.

By embracing strategic foresight, businesses can shape their own desired futures. They move beyond reacting to the world's changes and become active participants in creating a sustainable, innovative, and future-ready world.

The essentials of a successful strategic foresight process

A structured strategic foresight process guarantees that organizations do not miss on emerging trends and react to those timely. Companies that fail to embrace foresight risk missed opportunities and becoming obsolete in their industry.

By systematically scanning the future, firms can identify risks, develop opportunities, and stay competitive in an evolving market.

A robust foresight process includes the definition of scouting areas, a proper workflow and governance structure to facilitate environmental scanning, horizon scanning, trend analysis, or scenario planning. All these scouting methods aim to collect the necessary knowledge and intel for growth opportunity development and risk mitigation activities.

Following clear foresight steps help organizations understand new technologies, societal shifts, and other factors that could significantly impact their development.

How a systematic corporate foresight process helps organizations stay ahead

A well-structured corporate foresight process enables organisations to make proactive, informed decisions. Instead of reacting to crises, organizations with strong foresight capabilities anticipate disruptions and prepare months or years in advance.

Foresight helps teams recognize weak signals—early indicators of potential shifts in the industry or market. By detecting these signals early, companies can take action before competitors, gaining a first-mover advantage.

This is especially crucial when adapting to new technologies that may transform the industry.

Companies that integrate strategic foresight important practices into their planning processes ensure that long-term success is not left to chance. They use insights from foresight to develop flexible initiatives that align with multiple future scenarios.

How to conduct environmental scanning for future insights

Environmental scanning involves systematically monitoring external factors that may significantly impact an organization’s industry and market. This includes changes in consumer behavior, policy shifts, new technologies, and economic developments.

To conduct effective environmental scanning, organizations should track emerging trends across different domains such as politics, economy, society, and technology, the pestel dimensions. Organizations can engage different foresight scouts for each segment to identify growth opportunities.

Using both qualitative and quantitative data, organizations can build a comprehensive understanding of the forces shaping their future.

Regular scanning ensures that organizations do not fall behind due to missed opportunities. Instead, they can identify specific events and develop strategic responses before changes become mainstream.

Horizon scanning: Identifying signals of change early

Horizon scanning focuses on detecting weak signals and early-stage disruptions that could evolve into major trends along three or more different horizons.

Over the years, two different horizon scanning understandings developed. The one splits horizon scanning based on time dimensions (short-term, mid-term, or long-term trend impact). The other splits horizon scanning based on the distance to the core business (core, adjacent, or edge).

The horizons define the direction for the horizon scanning activities. By using trend analysis, trend experts can spot patterns that indicate where new technologies or business models might be heading.

This enables organizations to develop future-ready plans and prepare for industry shifts before they become disruptive.

Companies that excel at horizon scanning can anticipate changes in regulations, market demands, or technological breakthroughs. This minimizes uncertainty and reduces the risk of being caught off guard by transformational shifts in their industry.

Scenario planning: How do key drivers of change influence future-ready business strategies

Scenario planning is a traditional tool in strategic foresight that prepares for multiple possible future developments. Instead of relying on a single forecast, organizations create different plausible scenarios based on key drivers of change.

These scenarios consider how factors like new technologies, geopolitical events, or climate policies might develop. For each factor, different projections are created. The likelihood of co-occurrence of these projections is calculated and leads to different consistent scenarios.

In explorative scenario planning, organizations then develop response actions for each scenario, ensuring that they can adapt quickly when changes occur. It is yet worth noting that scenario analysis has lost relevance over the years due to a lack of direct impact on problem-solving, creation effort, and the rise of AI foresight tools.

Business opportunity development: From trends to fields of action

To make foresight effective, all the collected foresight intelligence needs to result in a clear presentation of potential opportunities to increase market share, and profitability, or create new profit for the leadership team.

To identify market opportunities, multiple data sources need to be considered when evaluating trends. For the most impactful ones, organizations need to relate those with existent capabilities and strategic directions.

When an organization has a strength, an attractive opportunity is given when tackling the trend. When an organization has no capability but high strategic interest, the firm needs to invest in innovation to build its institutional capacity.

In any way, by analyzing new trends and market disruptions, market scouts must identify areas for growth and development for leadership and strategic decision making. This can involve launching new products, adjusting business models, or investing in innovation to stay ahead of competitors. 

The essentials of a successful strategic foresight process

A structured strategic foresight process guarantees that organizations do not miss on emerging trends and react to those timely. Companies that fail to embrace foresight risk missed opportunities and becoming obsolete in their industry.

By systematically scanning the future, firms can identify risks, develop opportunities, and stay competitive in an evolving market.

A robust foresight process includes the definition of scouting areas, a proper workflow and governance structure to facilitate environmental scanning, horizon scanning, trend analysis, or scenario planning. All these scouting methods aim to collect the necessary knowledge and intel for growth opportunity development and risk mitigation activities.

Following clear foresight steps help organizations understand new technologies, societal shifts, and other factors that could significantly impact their development.

How a systematic corporate foresight process helps organizations stay ahead

A well-structured corporate foresight process enables organisations to make proactive, informed decisions. Instead of reacting to crises, organizations with strong foresight capabilities anticipate disruptions and prepare months or years in advance.

Foresight helps teams recognize weak signals—early indicators of potential shifts in the industry or market. By detecting these signals early, companies can take action before competitors, gaining a first-mover advantage.

This is especially crucial when adapting to new technologies that may transform the industry.

Companies that integrate strategic foresight important practices into their planning processes ensure that long-term success is not left to chance. They use insights from foresight to develop flexible initiatives that align with multiple future scenarios.

How to conduct environmental scanning for future insights

Environmental scanning involves systematically monitoring external factors that may significantly impact an organization’s industry and market. This includes changes in consumer behavior, policy shifts, new technologies, and economic developments.

To conduct effective environmental scanning, organizations should track emerging trends across different domains such as politics, economy, society, and technology, the pestel dimensions. Organizations can engage different foresight scouts for each segment to identify growth opportunities.

Using both qualitative and quantitative data, organizations can build a comprehensive understanding of the forces shaping their future.

Regular scanning ensures that organizations do not fall behind due to missed opportunities. Instead, they can identify specific events and develop strategic responses before changes become mainstream.

Horizon scanning: Identifying signals of change early

Horizon scanning focuses on detecting weak signals and early-stage disruptions that could evolve into major trends along three or more different horizons.

Over the years, two different horizon scanning understandings developed. The one splits horizon scanning based on time dimensions (short-term, mid-term, or long-term trend impact). The other splits horizon scanning based on the distance to the core business (core, adjacent, or edge).

The horizons define the direction for the horizon scanning activities. By using trend analysis, trend experts can spot patterns that indicate where new technologies or business models might be heading.

This enables organizations to develop future-ready plans and prepare for industry shifts before they become disruptive.

Companies that excel at horizon scanning can anticipate changes in regulations, market demands, or technological breakthroughs. This minimizes uncertainty and reduces the risk of being caught off guard by transformational shifts in their industry.

Scenario planning: How do key drivers of change influence future-ready business strategies

Scenario planning is a traditional tool in strategic foresight that prepares for multiple possible future developments. Instead of relying on a single forecast, organizations create different plausible scenarios based on key drivers of change.

These scenarios consider how factors like new technologies, geopolitical events, or climate policies might develop. For each factor, different projections are created. The likelihood of co-occurrence of these projections is calculated and leads to different consistent scenarios.

In explorative scenario planning, organizations then develop response actions for each scenario, ensuring that they can adapt quickly when changes occur. It is yet worth noting that scenario analysis has lost relevance over the years due to a lack of direct impact on problem-solving, creation effort, and the rise of AI foresight tools.

Business opportunity development: From trends to fields of action

To make foresight effective, all the collected foresight intelligence needs to result in a clear presentation of potential opportunities to increase market share, and profitability, or create new profit for the leadership team.

To identify market opportunities, multiple data sources need to be considered when evaluating trends. For the most impactful ones, organizations need to relate those with existent capabilities and strategic directions.

When an organization has a strength, an attractive opportunity is given when tackling the trend. When an organization has no capability but high strategic interest, the firm needs to invest in innovation to build its institutional capacity.

In any way, by analyzing new trends and market disruptions, market scouts must identify areas for growth and development for leadership and strategic decision-making. This can involve launching new products, adjusting business models, or investing in innovation to stay ahead of competitors. 

Implementing a Foresight Program: Best Practices and Challenges

Strategic foresight is not just about anticipating change—it’s about leveraging it for success. Companies that integrate foresight into their industry planning can proactively shape their future, ensuring long-term relevance and profitability.

A successful foresight program enables organizations to anticipate shifts, minimize risks, and seize future opportunities. However, implementing such a program comes with challenges, including data complexity, uncertainty, and resistance to change.

One best practice is embedding foresight into strategic decision-making rather than treating it as a separate function. Foresight should inform strategy, R&D, and new product development leadership. This ensures that companies do not just track driving forces and emerging trends but actively seek growth opportunities.

Another critical factor is developing a structured approach to foresight. Organizations must define clear ownership, and use reliable foresight methods, and state-of-the-art foresight software. Without a systematic process, foresight efforts risk being nice-to-haves and without any industry impact.

A major challenge is overcoming short-term and current thinking. Many leadership teams prioritize immediate returns over long-term strategic benefits. To succeed, leadership must incorporate a future mindset and culture of innovation that values long-term vision alongside short-term execution.

Access to quality data is another hurdle. Effective foresight requires tracking start-up innovation, economic shifts, and changes in the environment. Companies should invest in advanced tools for data collection and analysis to increase efficiency and make informed decisions.

Lastly, cross-functional collaboration is essential. A foresight program should build direct relationships between scouts and the different departments—R&D, marketing, strategy, and product development—to ensure that the foresight intelligence serves real team needs.

Without internal alignment, foresight insights will not translate into actionable plans and question the foresight program's impact.

Core principles and benefits of strategic foresight

A well-executed strategic foresight approach provides departments and teams with a proactive edge. It enhances resilience, improves innovation capacity, and helps functional teams navigate uncertainty with confidence.

One major benefit is risk mitigation. Organizations that engage in foresight can identify disruptions and adjust their strategies in advance. This reduces exposure to unexpected market shocks and competitive threats.

Foresight also drives innovation. By using horizon scanning to identify future events, potential change, and consumer behavior shifts, organizations can identify growth opportunities and differentiation. This allows them to stay ahead of industry changes rather than reacting after the fact.

Another key advantage is long-term sustainability. Firms that practice strategic foresight align their strategies with future market needs, regulatory trends, and environmental concerns. This ensures they remain relevant in a rapidly evolving environment.

Key principles that drive effective foresight

To maximize the impact of strategic foresight, organizations should follow key guiding principles.

First, anticipation overreaction. Organizations must proactively explore future opportunities rather than respond to changes as they occur. This mindset shift helps them stay ahead of forces changing their industries.

Second, diverse perspectives matter. Effective foresight includes input from various teams, leadership, industry, subject-matter experts, and other stakeholders. This broadens the scope of analysis and reduces blind spots in strategic decision-making.

Third, continuous monitoring. Foresight is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. Organizations must regularly update their insights based on horizon scanning, innovation, and new forces shaping the future.

By following these principles, organizations can identify new opportunities, develop a robust foresight program, and position themselves for sustainable success in a rapidly evolving world.

Key foresight roles: Foresight manager, trend scouts, and foresight promotors

Building a strong foresight community is essential for organizations that want to integrate strategic foresight into their decision-making processes. A group with specific responsibilities helps navigate an evolving economic environment, anticipate drivers of change, and proactively respond to shifts in technology and market dynamics.

By systematically applying foresight methods, organizations can make informed decisions that position them ahead of competitors.

A well-structured foresight team continuously scans the horizon for innovation and disruptions that may impact the organization. Their ability to analyze complex data, detect drivers of change, and interpret industry transformations allows other teams to develop future-ready strategies.

Without an institutionalized foresight team, organizations risk missing critical signals and falling behind in their industry.

Jobs-to-be-done in a foresight team:

Every member of a foresight team plays a vital role in shaping the organization's future. They conduct deep research into technology advancements and economic trends to ensure that leadership stays ahead of disruptions.

Through foresight methods, they evaluate drivers of change analyze complex industry patterns, and liaise with other stakeholders, ensuring they receive the insights needed to remain adaptive to a rapidly shifting environment.

By leveraging trend research, they create actionable insights that support leadership in making informed decisions. Their ability to translate foresight into strategy ensures that the organization not only reacts to changes but also drives innovation proactively.

Collaboration is key to embedding foresight within the organization. The team works across departments to integrate foresight methods into other team practices, ensuring that insights are applied in real-world decision-making.

Providing training and fostering a future-positive culture helps employees at all levels recognize the importance of problem-solving and long-term planning.

Foresight director

The Foresight Director is responsible for setting the vision and strategic direction for the organization's foresight program. It can be a formal role or a job part of other roles such as Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Head of R&D, and like.

The job of this leader is to ensure that foresight intelligence is integrated into corporate planning. They manage the team that is responsible for identifying drivers of change, assessing how technology and economic trends will shape the future, and what market opportunities emerge from this intel.

They oversee strategic planning and take a long-term horizon. Most time is spent on effective communication. They liaise with other stakeholders to identify their needs and translate those into objectives for the research team and foresight program.

On the other end, they must translate complex future insights into actionable strategies and make sure that the foresight insights are understood and fuel innovation projects.

Foresight manager / focus field owner

The Foresight Manager also referred to as a focus field owner, is responsible for one or multiple scouting fields. They do not necessarily scout for technologies, start-ups, or trends themselves, they manage the foresight process and the team of market insight scouts, analysts, subject-matter experts, business line managers, and citizen scouts.

They provide the structure and foresight methods for searching drivers of change, evaluating technology trends, and developing future opportunities. They analyze the insights collected and communicate the findings' impact on economic shifts and industry transformations.

By that, they ensure that leadership can make informed decisions based on reliable foresight research. By translating insights into strategic recommendations, they help organizations prepare for disruptions and innovation to stay ahead.

Market insight scout / analyst

The Market Insight Scout, also called analysts, trend scouts, or researchers, conducts in-depth research to detect horizon trends and emerging technology developments. They track drivers of change in consumer behavior, regulations, and economic conditions to anticipate industry shifts.

Using structured foresight methods, they collect data from multiple sources, synthesize insights, and support the team in identifying opportunities for problem-solving and growth. Their ability to navigate a complex environment ensures the company remains adaptable in uncertain times.

They report to the foresight manager or foresight director.

Subject matter expert

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) brings specialized knowledge in technology, policy, or market development. Their expertise helps the foresight team evaluate trends and technologies and better understand how specific factors will influence the future.

SMEs offer precise insights into emerging innovation, helping organizations mitigate risks and harness technology advancements into growth opportunities. Their ability to connect industry-specific knowledge with foresight strategies ensures that the organization stays competitive in a rapidly evolving economic environment.

They are involved as needed and consulted by the scouts, foresight manager, or foresight director.

Citizen scouts

Citizen Scouts play an important role in democratizing foresight within the organization. These individuals, regardless of department or title, actively engage in horizon scanning and contribute with valuable insights and knowledge sharing.

Citizen scouts often come from sales, business development, customer, and product teams and share their observations while working with clients or the product. They are important because they gain specific knowledge and can be the first to detect weak signals.

Their ability to discover new phenomena helps enrich the foresight process. While they may not specialize in foresight methods, their observations and curiosity about the future strengthen the organization’s ability to adapt and innovate.

Business line managers

For a foresight team to be effective, it must stay closely connected to business line managers. These ties ensure that foresight insights align with real needs while also allowing foresight teams to introduce emerging trends and drivers of change into strategic planning. Without this exchange, foresight risks becoming irrelevant and detached from operational realities.

Collaboration with business line managers helps foresight teams identify key industry shifts and technology developments that impact daily operations. At the same time, business leaders must be open to integrating horizon scanning insights into their decision-making. This two-way interaction makes foresight actionable rather than theoretical.

To ensure impact, foresight teams must present insights in a way that resonates with the team leads. Instead of focusing solely on foresight methods, they should provide clear, strategic recommendations that support innovation and problem-solving. Strong ties between foresight and core operations create a future-ready, adaptive organization.

6 recommendations to make your foresight successful

To build an effective foresight framework, organizations must integrate structured approaches and ensure continuous engagement with stakeholders. Successful foresight requires adaptability, collaboration, and the right foresight methods to provide insights that support long-term decision-making.

First, prioritize continuous horizon scanning to detect emerging trends early. This enables organizations to prepare for possible futures by identifying shifts in markets, consumer behavior, and critical infrastructure before they hit the industry.

Second, use various tools to analyze trends, including qualitative and quantitative data sources. Combining multiple methods strengthens foresight accuracy and enhances growth opportunity development.

Third, embed foresight into the organization’s strategy by aligning it with decision-making processes. A well-integrated foresight framework ensures that insights translate into actionable plans.

Fourth, foster cross-functional collaboration. Engaging experts from different departments provide diverse perspectives, enriching foresight efforts and improving strategic adaptability.

Fifth, continuously monitor and update foresight insights. The environment is constantly evolving, requiring regular trend reassessment to maintain foresight relevance.

Sixth, communicate foresight findings clearly. Simplifying complex insights helps decision-makers act on foresight rather than seeing it as theoretical research. A successful foresight process actively shapes the corporate strategy by preparing organizations for possible futures and mitigating risks.

Foresight frameworks for future planning

To navigate a world full of insights, emerging trends, and weak signals nearly every day, organizations must apply structured foresight methods to anticipate change and guide decision-making. Foresight frameworks provide the necessary structure to manage the velocity and richness of foresight insights.

From trend classification to the Three Horizons Framework and PESTEL analysis, these tools enable organizations to not get lost in detail, spend resources wisely, and identify opportunities systematically.

Key drivers of change classification: Weak signals, trends, and opportunities

Weak signals are early signs of change—subtle, often overlooked indicators that may evolve into larger shifts. Trends emerge when multiple weak signals gain traction, reflecting a broader pattern of change across industries or society. Opportunities arise when organizations act on trends, aligning them with their strengths to create value.

These concepts are interconnected: weak signals evolve into trends, and trends create opportunities for innovation and growth. Organizations that track weak signals early can anticipate trends before they fully emerge, giving them a competitive edge in identifying and capitalizing on future opportunities.

The three horizons framework: Structuring future thinking

The Three Horizons Framework is a structured approach to finding the direction for systematic horizon scanning. Each horizon serves as a direction to classify early signals, trends, and industry opportunities. This ensures that insight collection is balanced and no important focus area is missed.

This horizon scanning framework divides the future into three overlapping perspectives:

Horizon 1 – Focuses on the core business, optimizing existing products, services, and operations.

Horizon 2 – Identifies areas for growth and transformation, often involving adjacent innovations.

Horizon 3 – Explores disruptive innovations and scenarios that could redefine industries in the next decade.

By balancing these three horizons, organizations can fight being surprised by disruption. One example is how the automotive industry also scans the environment for other hydrogen applications (Horizon 3) while still scouting for technologies to optimize fuel efficiency in current models (Horizon 1).

Evaluation criteria for trends and emerging technologies

Not every trend or technology is worth investing in, so organizations must apply structured evaluation methods to determine their potential impact. Effective foresight methods assess factors such as maturity, adoption rate, market relevance, and alignment with key drivers to ensure strategic focus.

A commonly applied foresight framework is the RICE-framework which considers four factors: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.

• Reach: How many users, industries, or markets will the technology affect?

• Impact: What level of change will it drive—incremental improvement or industry disruption?

• Confidence: How much reliable data is available to support the reach and impact judgement?

• Effort: What level of investment, time, and resources are needed for addressing the trend?

For technologies, the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) helps determine how mature a technology is before adoption. The TRL scale, ranging from 1 (basic research, limited to academic research and laboratory testing) to 9 (fully deployed technology, broad adoption), provides a clear progression from theoretical concepts to market-ready solutions.

PESTEL analysis: Examining social, technological, economic, environmental, and political trends

PESTEL analysis is a widely used tool to classify key drivers shaping the future. It categorizes external influences into six areas:

• Political: Government policies, trade agreements, and regulations.

• Economic: Inflation, market growth, and employment trends.

• Social: Demographic shifts, cultural changes, and consumer behavior.

• Technological: Innovations like AI, blockchain, and biotech advancements.

• Environmental: Sustainability trends, climate policies, and resource availability.

• Legal (often combined with political): Data privacy laws, corporate regulations, and labor rights.

This structure creates a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive breakdown of environments and prevents blindspots while doing horizon scanning and environment scouting.

Goal pyramid: Relating foresight intelligence and organization needs

The goal pyramid is another foresight method to structure the foresight work. Organizations classify their goals into future primary, secondary, and tertiary goals.

These goals can then be mapped to the search fields and used to guide the actions of future scouts. The future scouts are responsible to collect insights, addressing these goals.

Using this framework methodolgy helps relating the environment scanning with clear organization needs.

Corporate foresight examples: Strategic foresight in action

Foresight movement at Dolby

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. has implemented ITONICS' Innovation OS to drive an internal foresight movement. The platform serves as the digital engine for the Dolby Futures Council, a group that focuses on future-related topics. Currently, 30 stakeholders are part of this initiative, ensuring that foresight is integrated throughout the organization.

In the podcast episode with Tessa Finlev, (former) Head of Foresight at Dolby Laboratories, she shares an important learning:

"To assume that running a Foresight or Future program is something that people can do on the side of their regular work would doom the whole thing directly to failure."

The Wurth trend radar

Spanning industries such as construction, logistics, automotive, aerospace, and consumer electronics, Würth Group’s diverse portfolio brings equally complex innovation challenges.

Meeting evolving customer expectations, responding to fast-moving competitors, and embracing emerging technologies demand a proactive, agile approach to innovation. 

To unlock synergies and future success, Würth recognized the need for greater collaboration and efficiency. Balancing each company’s unique requirements—from foresight to idea management and strategy validation—required a trend radar that seamlessly combines structure with flexibility.

The Intel Foresight Program

Intel, an ITONICS client, has established a global trend community on a central foresight and innovation management platform. The community brings together experts from across the organization to collect, evaluate, and interpret relevant insights such as trends, technologies, and other drivers of change emerging in their corporate landscape.