BUILDING STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES THROUGH

BUILDING STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES

THROUGH SCENARIO PLANNING

GIA WHITE PAPER 2/2005

GIA White Paper 2/2005 Building Strategic Intelligence Capabilities through Scenario Planning

1. Introduction

To date the new millennium has been marked by increasing uncertainty and rapidly accelerating change in the business environment of many organizations. Major change drivers in the macro environment including, continuing globalization, fast technological change, increased liquidity of wealth and fundamental changes in traditional values and cultural structures are well known. But as drivers in the macro environment interact with each industry’s own trends and uncertainties we find that the range of imaginable futures for individual firms has grown manifold in comparison to earlier decades.

In highly uncertain business environments, it seems change is the only constant. Some changes are incremental while others are transformational and discontinuous. Some can be anticipated in advance while others come unexpected.

In a world where uncertainty and change prevail, strategic planning without well-grounded methodologies and frameworks for assessing the future has become impossible. Above all, strategists and business planners need to learn to distinguish among the different kinds of uncertainties. They have to become confident in navigating uncertainty.

Secondly, business planners need new tools and methodologies to help deal with uncertainty in the strategy process. Scenario planning distinguishes itself from other more traditional approaches to strategic planning through its explicit approach toward ambiguity and uncertainty in the strategic question. There are other planning tools and analysis frameworks as well that are useful during times of uncertainty. But scenario thinking provides a comprehensive tool set. Scenarios can further be used as a building platform when using other tools and frameworks.

The Competitive Intelligence function is an ideal location for the central nerve system in a scenario planning exercise and it is in a key position to help the organization deal with uncertainty and change. Scenario planning and methodologies can be used as a stepping-stone in building up strategic intelligence capabilities.

2. Strategic Planning in a World of Uncertainty

2.1 STRATEGY AND UNCERTAINTY

Business is about taking risks and strategic planning is a risk navigation tool. A company’s strategy is marked by the underlying principles and assumptions on which the success of the organization is being built. The success or failure of an organization’s strategy is determined by how well the underlying principles and assumptions are related to its business environment. There must be a good fit between the organization and its surrounding world. Developing a sound and healthy organization requires an understanding of the environment as much as an understanding of the organization.

A more formal definition for strategy and strategic planning could be as follows: “Strategy is a fundamental framework through which an organization can assert its vital continuity, while at the same time purposely managing its adaptation to the changing environment to gain competitive advantage.”

Business is about taking risks and strategic planning is a risk navigation

tool.

Scenario planning distinguishes itself from other more traditional approaches to strategic planning through its explicit approach toward ambiguity and uncertainty in the

strategic question.


Strategy is, in other words, about the future and therefore involves uncertainty. Further, the success of a strategy is to a large extent determined by how well uncertainty regarding the business environment is understood and managed.

The traditional approach to strategic planning tries to eliminate uncertainty from the strategic equation, by:

1. Relying on senior management’s intuition,

2. Assuming that with the right analysis and sufficient resources the future can be forecasted with enough precision,

3. Extrapolating trends from the past into the future or

4. Simply assuming a status-quo in the external business environment.

It would be better to acknowledge that some uncertainty always exists when we are dealing with the future and that business foresight does not emerge solely from extensive analysis of the current market environment. Rather, the issue is to minimize the uncertainty at hand, to analyze the remaining uncertainty and to make strategy plans and analyses that acknowledge and are fitted to the prevailing uncertainty.

We turn next to a discussion on different types of uncertainty and how to identity the various types and levels of uncertainty the organization faces while planning for a future strategy. Finally in this chapter, we look at tools for dealing with the identified levels of uncertainty.

2.2 UNCERTAINTIES AND TRENDS

According to experts, there are three main categories of uncertainty which can be identified. (See among others Heijden van der, Kees (1996), Scenarios)

1. Risks, where it is possible to estimate probabilities for various possible outcomes.

2. Structural uncertainties, where the possibility of an event presents itself by means of a cause/effect chain of reasoning, but there is no evidence for judging how likely it could be.

3. Unknowables: events whose nature, causes and consequences are not known .

Where events classified as “risks” or “structural uncertainties” can be predicted to some extent, strategy planning activities do make sense.

Certain kinds of constraints allow us to predict particular environmental developments:

• Time delays, developments that are “in the pipeline” and will emerge, e.g. demographics.

• System constraints, e.g. limits to growth.

• Generic behaviour of structural feedback loops in a system, e.g. price wars.

• Actor logic and motivation, e.g. maximising shareholder value as a basis for corporate motivation.

• The inertia of the system (including social inertia), e.g. economic development, culture.

• Laws of nature.

This means that certain future developments are to some extent “predetermined.” Category 1 factors and events that are more or less considered predetermined are called trends.

What is even more important to consider than uncertainty characteristics of individual factors and events is the total uncertainty level of an organization’s decision environment and the characteristics of that uncertainty level. All individual external factors that an organization faces in the future are characterised by one of the three uncertainty categories listed above. However, the complete future business environment of an organization is determined by numerous future trends and uncertain and even unimaginable events.

All single imaginable events and trends, facing the organization within a specified future timeframe and influencing any particular decision, together form the decision environment of an organization. Further, the uncertainty characteristics of the individual interacting events and trends result in one of four possible uncertainty levels for a specific decision environment. The four levels of uncertainty are presented in Figure 1 and described below.

1. If the future of an organization’s business environment and the key decisions the organization is facing are characterized by only a few risk factors whose probabilities are fairly high, that is trends, then one can talk about a clear enough future. This is not to say that all potential drivers of the decision environment are 100 percent predictable. Organizations face Level 1 uncertainty when the range of potential outcomes is narrow enough that this uncertainty is irrelevant in terms of making a decision.

2. A decision environment that is characterised by a small limited set of risk factors or st ructura l uncertaint ies presents the organization with a limited set of outcomes to key strategy questions - one of which will occur. For an organization facing Level 2 uncertainty the decision environment can be, in any specific moment, described with the help of a closed set of future outcomes to key strategy questions.1 Analysis, though it may help establish relative probabilities and provide a clearer picture around each possible future outcome, cannot predict which one will occur.

3. As the number of uncertainties grows the system complexity increases and it becomes impossible to determine a closed sets of future outcomes to key strategy questions. Instead, Level 3 uncertainty is characterised by a decision environment where it is possible to determine a range of potential outcomes to key strategy questions. The outcomes will merely be representative of what might occur and thus not collectively exhaustive. Some other point within the range of possible outcomes could occur.

4. Level 4 uncertainties in the decision environment arise typically as a consequence of unknowables occurring in the business environment. Under Level 4 uncertainty, outcomes of key strategy questions are both unknown and unknowable. Analysis cannot even identify the range of potential outcomes; a limitless range of potential outcomes prevails.

But note that future unknowables do not affect the level of uncertainty of the decision environment as unknowables by definition are outside the realm of imagination at the time of strategy analysis and planning.

All single imaginable events and trends, facing the organization within a specified future timeframe and influencing any particular decision, together form the decision

environment of an organization.

2.3 LEVELS OF UNCERTAINTY OF THE DECISION ENVIRONMENT

1 A closed set of future outcomes refers here to a set that contains all possible outcomes and further so that each outcome is unique. Many readers of business literature are familiar with the synonymous expression “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive set” popularised by the international management consultancy McKinsey & Co.

Figure 1. Presenting the four levels of uncertainty.2

2 The discussion regarding The four levels of uncertainty are based partly on ideas presented in Courtney, Hugh (2001), 20/20 Foresight, Harvard Business School Press. Coutney uses the same four levels of uncertainty but his reasoning behind them and his conclusions differ considerably from the discussion presented here.

Pure Level 1 situations, in which the future paths of all key drivers are clear enough, are hard to find in today’s economy. Organizations facing a decision environment with level 1 uncertainty operate in industries that are not affected by external shocks, major technology breakthroughs or other revolutionary developments. Decision environments with Level 1 uncertainty become rarer the further away the decision time frame is set.

A decision environment with Level 2 uncertainty arises, for example, when potential regulatory or legislative changes overshadow all key strategy questions of an organization. Situations marked by pure competition games (especially duopoly or oligopoly industries) or standards

competition (e.g. many evolving technology markets are marked by network externalities and positive-feedback systems that may lead to serious standard competition3) are other good examples of decision environments under Level 2 uncertainty.

Organizations most often face Level 3 uncertainty in their decision environment when dealing with medium term strategy planning. The business environment and its future evolvement are complex enough to make point forecasts and identify closed sets of future outcomes impossible. But it is not a situation characterised by Level 4 uncertainties where one cannot even bound the range of possible outcomes. Some sources of Level three uncertainty are unstable

1. Clean enough future 2. Alternate futures

3. A range of features 4. True ambiguity

The entire exercise of identifying the level of uncertainty for a specific decision environment is worth doing as the different levels require different tools and frameworks for analysing the future business environment. Further, making sound strategy decisions continuously is not possible without researching and monitoring the decision environment.

The traditional analysis tools and frameworks, such as Porter’s five forces model, the SWOT model and the newer “value network” -approaches, are well known and much used in business environment research and strategy work. The problem with these traditional tools and frameworks is that they give a snapshot of a situation prevailing in an industry or company. They provide little foresight on industry dynamics and, as such, are of less use in times of uncertainty. Traditional analysis models are however still well suited for analyzing the decision environment under Level 1 uncertainty.

macroeconomic conditions, competition on competitive markets with many participants and changing customer preferences.

Level 4 situations are rare and they tend to degrade to lower levels of uncertainty over time. They occur during or after major disruptions or

discontinuities. The origin of uncertainty can lie in major technology, social or economic upheavals. It is characteristic of this situation that the entire future structure and dynamics of the market are being questioned and are outside the reach of our analysis tools.

2.4 LEVELS OF UNCERTAINTY AND ANALYSIS FRAMEWORKS AND TOOLS

Traditional analysis models are also useful in giving a situational analysis, a picture of what the world looks like today, as a basis for analysis and strategy work under uncertainty Levels 2 and 3. But, as uncertainty regarding the future is the dominant characteristic in decision environments with higher levels of uncertainty, a snapshot of the prevailing situation is inadequate as a starting point for strategy planning.

The traditional toolset needs to be augmented with analysis frameworks that directly deal with the future development of the business environment or, in other words, lowers the uncertainty associated with the decision environment by describing and framing possible future outcomes. Figure 2 gives an overview of frameworks and analysis tools suitable for the different levels of uncertainty. As can be seen, scenario analysis is an important part of the toolsets and a suitable starting point for analysis under uncertainty levels 2 to 4.

3 Shapiro & Varian: ”Information Rules”, 1999 present a brilliant discussion on standard competition and many other issues that implies level 2 decision environments.


Figure 2. Frameworks and analysis tools for the different levels of uncertainty

1. Clean enough future

Examples of analysis toolsPorter’s five forces

SWOT analysisCore competencies diagnostics

2. Alternate futures

Examples of analysis toolsScenario work

+ traditional analysis tool set, decision trees, game theory,...

3. A range of features

Examples of analysis toolsScenario work

+ traditional analysis tool set, decision trees, game theory,...

4. True ambiguity

Examples of analysis tools:Scenario work,

Working backward to what you would have to believe to support

a given strategy.

Scenarios are descriptive narratives of plausible alternative projections of how a studied system will evolve in a

specified time frame.

3. Scenarios - what are they?

Scenario planning and analysis is planning aimed at systematically exploring alternative lines of development in the outside world and their consequences for one’s own business, industry or area, i.e. the system being studied.

The following, or some very similar, definition of scenarios seem to be widely accepted4:

Alternative projections facilitate comparing and contrasting what could unfold under distinct conditions and assumptions. Scenarios are plausible in that there is, or should be, some degree of evidence to support the projections they contain.

Scenarios are used for various strategy process related purposes.

• Strategy development

• Improving assumptions behind planning is the most obvious use of scenarios. Scenarios represent pictures of possible future outcomes based on both today’s facts and on assumptions of what can be extracted from the trends that we are able to identify in the present. They are descriptions of possible futures and are not forecasts.

• Scenar ios a l so se rve to cha l l enge conventional thinking. Much of today’s business life is hectic and most managers’ time is spent on routines. Consequently, it is common to extrapolate past experience

and to assume the future as a continuation of the present. The central objective in narrating scenarios is to expose the dangers of assuming that the future will be a simple continuation of the present trends.

• To further generate new ideas and insight scenarios can be used as starting points for war games and simulation exercises.

• Strategy evaluation

• In addition to using scenarios as a starting point when drawing up new strategies, scenarios are useful for testing the robustness of a company’s strategies under each scenario.

• Also, risk assessments of a company’s business portfolio and individual projects can be made by testing these under different scenarios.

• Basis for early warning system

• Maybe the most interesting application of scenario planning is to use the exercise as a basis for early warning systems. By concentrating on critical uncertainties and identifying and analysing central influencing factors, it is possible to further identify leading indicators and signposts that should be monitored and that should function as the basis for an early warning system.

• In a similar fashion scenario analysis can be used for identification of critical information needs in general.

• Organizational learning

• Scenarios contribute to the learning process in a number of important ways5:

3.1 DEFINING SCENARIOS

4 See e.g Story, Jonathan (1999), The Frontiers of Fortune: “Scenarios present different narratives of possible futures, and are the most relevant to corporate needs” or Fahey, Liam; Randall, Robert M. (1998), Learning from the Future: “Scenarios are descriptive narratives of plausible alternative projections of how some future will evolve.”

• At the individual level

• As a cognitive device: A set of scenarios is a highly efficient data organization tool. Stories are efficient in giving many different bits of information a mutual context, thereby making the cognitive aspects of any situation more manageable to deal with.

• As a perception device: As individuals, people see certain things and overlook others based on their existing mental models and resulting expectations. The scenario process increases the range of what participants see and expands their mental models.

• As a cognitive reflection tool: The scenario process helps people think through ideas generated in the strategic conversation more effectively.

5 Heijden van der, Kees (1996), Scenarios

Figure 3. The two main categories of scenarios.

1. By definition, in a decision environment with Level 2 uncertainty a closed set future outcomes or scenarios can be identified. These scenarios offer the possibility to estimate probabilities and expected pay-offs for different strategies and outcomes.

2. Under Level 3 and Level 4 uncertainty a closed set of scenarios is not possible to identify. Rather, each scenario is merely a plausible description of the future. Scenario planning and analysis in this setting is a more creative process than under Level 2 uncertainty and it also offers great learning opportunities for the organization.

• At the group level

• As a ready-made language provider, assisting the strategic conversation across a wide range of partly conflicting views.

• As a conversational facilitation vehicle: Scenario planning provides an organised way of discussing relevant aspects of the business in an organizational context.

• As a vehicle for mental model alignment, which in turn permits coherent strategic action.

However, there is no universal scenario planning and analysis method. Instead, there are a large number of different techniques and methods for generating and using scenarios in planning and decision-making contexts. Two main categories of scenarios and associated methods can be identified as described in figure 3 below.

p=x

p=x-y

p=x-y-z

t

Expected pay-off p=?

p=?

p=?


Scenario work under Level 2 uncertainty is fairly straightforward and amounts to:

• Specifying key aspects of company and industry structure, conduct, and performance in each possible future outcome.

• Assigning probabilities to each outcome, if possible.• And finally, describing the path to each of the outcomes.

Scenario work methods and outcomes for decision environments marked by uncertainty levels 3 and 4 are both based on the same ideas. There are a few differences though:

• Under Level 3 uncertainty it is not possible to identify a closed set of future outcomes and as-sociated scenarios but it is possible to build a number of representative descriptions of possible future outcomes within a bounded range of possible outcome. These scenarios can be used for evaluating strategies and their robustness to the range of possible outcomes.

• When dealing with Level 4 uncertainty analysis cannot even identify the range of potential outcomes. Still, scenario work is one of the most useful tools available as it can help managers “envision the possible” in the chaos and allows the strategists to test strategies for different future outcomes.

3.2 THE SCENARIO PLANNING PROCESS

A suitable scenario work methodology under uncertainty levels 3 and 4 could be briefly de-scribed as follows. The method can be broken down into twelve steps:

1. Identify the focal issues and create a group

2. Identify and group factors

3. Rank by importance and uncertainty

4. Conduct influence analysis

5. Select the scenario logics

6. Test for consistency

7. Flesh out the scenarios

8. Study implications for strategy

9. Select leading indicators and signposts

10. Discuss strategic options

11. Agree on implementation plan

12. Publicize scenarios

1. Identify the focal issue & create a group

The organization needs to identify key decisions or focal issues that will have an impact on how it does business. It is usually a good choice to start from the business environment and, later in the scenario work process, move inwards towards the organization. The focal issue or question should reflect some part of or theme in the organization’s external business environment.

Also, the focus timeframe should be set at this stage.

It is also important to form an appropriate group for steering the scenario process and for doing much of the drafting work. Questions to consider include: • What is a good size for the group?• Should an outside consultant lead the project

or are there people mastering the process available inside the organization?

• Should outside experts be invited to join?• How is it possible to get different views

represented in the group?• How should the group be set up to ensure an

innovative and productive atmosphere?


2. Identify and group factors

Trends, uncertainties, events and other factors in the external business environment, which influence the focal issue, should be identified, listed and grouped. At this stage a combina-tion of workshops, interviews and desk research should be used.

3. Rank by importance and uncertainty

This is really an issue of focus. After a large number of factors have been identified, they should be ranked or sorted on the basis of im-portance and uncertainty. High-impact events that are nevertheless highly uncertain represent the cornerstones of scenarios.

4. Conduct influence analysis

Analyse how the different uncertainties and trends are interrelated. A useful tool at this stage is to create a correlation matrix for at least the key uncertainties identified and the trends with the highest perceived impact.

5. Select the scenario logics

Choose a limited number of key uncertainties to build your scenario logics around. Create skeleton scenarios. Here it’s best to let your intuition play a larger role. Create some interesting stories on how the various elements might interact under certain conditions.

6. Test for consistency

Ensure that the skeleton scenarios are internally consistent and eliminate any that would not make sense. Further, eliminate scenarios that are uninteresting or irrelevant from the viewpoint of the focal issue.

7. Flesh out the scenarios

Create narratives and illustrate the different scenarios. Populate the scenarios with data on potential market size, reactions of key players, financial impact, and so on.

8. Study implications for strategy

The analysis of implications should reveal weak-nesses in decisions or plans and opportunities and threats in the future business environment. Most of the traditional toolbox can be used to test company positions and strategies under dif-ferent scenarios. One additional useful analysis at this stage is to determine under how many scenarios a given decision is viable.

9. Select leading indicators and signposts

Identify signposts or leading indicators to alert us to the unfolding of a particular scenario. Choose high-impact uncertainties and use results from the impact analysis in deciding for indicators.

10. Discuss strategic options

The strategist should develop strategies that match the organization’s visions as well as changes in the outside world. This phase often works on identifying keys to success, success areas that should be concentrated on, and also on identifying areas that the organization should move away from. A matrix tool that maps a com-plete set of options against the scenarios can be used to systematise the process.

11. Agree on implementation plan

When the overall strategy has been determined a concrete and clear plan needs to be put together. It is easy to have ideas but often difficult to implement them. The key questions are:• When? • Who? • How?

12. Publicise scenarios Dissemination of scenarios is crucial for ensuring implementation and adherence to the ensuing strategies. Questions to be considered at this stage include at least:• What is the target audience?• What channels can be used to reach the

target audience?• What is the most efficient method to get

the attention of the target audience?


The following is a list of some additional impor-tant things to consider in a scenario process.

• At least two scenarios are needed to reflect uncertainty. Having more than four has proven organizationally impractical.

• Each of the scenarios must be plausible. That means that they must grow logically (in a cause/effect way) from the past and the present.

• They must be internally consistent. That means that events within a scenario must be related through cause/effect lines of argument.

• They must be relevant to the issues of con-cern to the organization. They must provide useful, comprehensive and challenging idea generators and test conditions against which management can consider future business plans, strategies, and direction.

• The scenarios must produce a new and original perspective on the client’s issues. They must have an element of surprise.

• Organizations commonly make two basic mistakes in the scenario process: They rely on input from too narrow a group of people or they curtail the process too early.

4. Scenario work as a basis for building strategic intelligence capabilities

Strategic Intelligence is a type of Competitive Intelligence produced for strategic purposes. Strategic Intelligence can be defined as:

“a systemat ic and cont inuous process of producing needed intelligence of strategic value in an actionable form to facilitate long-term decision-making”.

Typical problems in Strategic Intelligence and, in fact, Competitive Intelligence operations as well are:

• The organization does not recognise its critical information needs

• Weak signals from the business environment go unnoticed

• In fo rmat ion f rom exper t s w i th in the organization is not used effectively

• There is too much raw information scattered around the organization, while not enough structured and analysed information is available.

A recent comprehensive study on Competitive Intelligence in large Finnish companies found that recognising critical information needs and utilising internal information are the two factors

that companies feel are their most important targets for development. 76 percent of the companies studied felt that crucial needs for information were not recognised at all or not well enough. Recognising critical information needs was considered a significant area of im-provement mainly as the operations concerning business information acquisition and analysis were currently not systematic or comprehensive enough. Another crucial (70 percent) issue of development in the companies studied was the utilisation of internal information.

How does scenario work help the Competitive Intelligence function in building strategic intel-ligence capabilities?

• By helping in identifying critical informa-tion needs. As the scenario planning process ideally involves experts from around the organization, and further, as the method focuses on key uncertainties in the business environment, a comprehensive list of critical information needs is an additional outcome to the scenarios themselves. Further, closely related to identifying critical information needs is the possibility of using a scenario planning exercise to set up an early warning system.


• By creating a shared view and language with a regard to the external business environment. This again helps in activating the internal network and in communicating focus areas for monitoring of the external environment so that the internal network can be utilised for collect ing weak signals.

• By providing a basis for continuous dialogue with top management and internal experts.

• For individuals involved in scenario analysis a process development of their strategic analysis capabilities will take place. In addition to providing a framework for en-visioning future developments, complicated interconnections of key issues are analysed during the process.

• Scenario planning provides an effective means for collecting information and knowledge from inside the organization by involving key persons and experts in the process.

The Competitive Intelligence function is an ideal location for a scenario work headquarters as:• The Competitive Intelligence function is a

knowledge centre with a focus on the external business environment.

• The persons involved in Competitive Intel-ligence work possess the skills and means to collect and analyse information regarding the business environment.

• It is of great advantage to the process itself that the exercise is led by a party with a neutral point of view and that is not aligned with any special business area of the organization.

Finally, if the Competitive Intelligence func-tion is meant to serve not only operational but also strategic needs, scenario work is a basic building block which cannot be bypassed when analysing the future business environment, as shown in chapter two.

5. Conclusions

In today’s business environment where uncertainty and change prevail, strategic planning without well-grounded methodologies and frameworks for assessing the future has become impossible. Figure 4 describes a framework and process model for navigating uncertainty and for practising ef-fective strategic intelligence.

The process starts by defining the strategic is-sues and questions at hand and analyzing the prevailing uncertainty. If the decision environ-ment is characterized by an uncertainty level higher than 1, a scenario planning process should be initiated. If, on the other hand, the future of the organization’s business environment and the key decisions the organization is facing are

characterized by only a few risk factors, the tra-ditional analysis toolset is sufficient. Once the decision environment has been analyzed and a clear enough picture of different future outcomes and competitive constellations has been reached, the organization can proceed to crafting the actual strategies and implementing them.

Given the rapid pace of change in uncertain busi-ness environments, organizations have to moni-tor their business environment and update their strategy choices over time. In practise this means repeating the process over and over again.


Figure 4: Process description for a scenario planning based strategic intelligence process

In order to practice effective strategic intelli-gence based on scenario planning, certain critical aspects should be taken into account:

• Set up clear objectives, milestones and dead-lines for the project and communicate them around the organization.

• Don’t rush into deciding the focal issue and the topic for the scenario analysis.

• Make the decision makers owners of the sce-narios. One of the most powerful contributions to a good scenario process is the direct and ongoing involvement of key decision makers.

• Involve a wide group of people from the

organization in the process. • Be sure not to curtail the process too early.

Reserve enough resources for fleshing out the scenarios, analysing strategy implica-tions, building an Early Warning system and for communicating the scenarios and their operational implications.

• Communicate effectively and imaginatively. • Have fun.

Definestrategic

issue

MonitorBusiness

Environment

StrategyFormulation &

Implementation

Level of Uncertainty > 1 ?Scenarios from previous round not credible

No

Scenario Planning

Yes

Traditionalanalysistoolbox

Scenario analysis1. Identify focal issue & create group2. Identify and group factors3. Rank by importance and uncertainty4. Conduct influence analysis5. Select the scenario logics6. Test for consistency7. Flesh out the scenarios

Build Early Warning System8. Study implications for strategy9. Select leading indicators and signposts

10. Establish follow-up process

Communicate scenarios & weak signal quidelines


Aaker, David, A. (1998), Developing Business Strategies, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Courtney, Hugh (2001), 20/20 Foresight, Harvard Business School Press.

Fahey, Liam (1999), Competitors, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Fahey, Liam; Randall, Robert M. (1998), Learning from the Future, John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Heijden van der, Kees (1996), Scenarios, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Maira, Arun; Scott-Morgan, Peter (1996), The Accelerating Organization, McGraw Hill Professional Book Group

Ringland, Gill (2002), Scenarios in Business, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Shapiro, Carl; Varian, Hal R. (1999): Information Rules, Harvard Business School Press.

Story, Jonathan (1999), The Frontiers of Fortune, Financial Times/Prentice Hall

6. Literature References


The GIA White Paper series

1/2004 Introduction to Competitive Intelligence2/2004 Introduction to Strategic Intelligence3/2004 Measuring the Benefits of Competitive Intelligence4/2004 Key Success Factors of Competitive Intelligence1/2005 Developing an Intelligence System2/2005 Building Strategic Intelligence Capabilities through Scenario Planning

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For further information or assistance in any Competitive Intelligence-related matters, please contact the GIA Member company closest to You, or refer to the GIA website at www.globalintelligence.com.

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BUILDING STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES THROUGH