Our Far Futures programme contains an amalgamation of strategic research and futures tools to identify a set of scenarios that might indicate our clients’ future, enabling them to be more provocative and speculative as they look more long-term.
We consider the future from a number of possible lenses, and help to create active orientation and open up spaces for a new, forward-looking way of thinking. Typically, we take a four-stage process to help clients harness disruption proactively and strategically.
Identification and Provocation – conducting STEEP analysis to map and assess the interdependencies of our macro-environmental Global Drivers and their consequences on the future
Further Interrogation – our Futures 1000 Expertsenable us to stress-test, develop and validate working hypotheses
Draft the Scenarios – scenarios are based on the trajectories of strategic building blocks to include the probable, possible, problematic and prosperous futures
Strategic Implications – each scenario includes key attributes, evidence or signals that show the ways in which much of the future is already present today and how clients can navigate change
Are you ready to make more informed assumptions and decisions based on why, how and what the future is going to look like by 2030, 2040 or 2050?
Future Challenge: Seismic shifts happening today will create a long-term global impact, reshaping the way we work, live and play over the next decade. How can Dell identify and adapt to future opportunities and challenges to continue to thrive to 2035 and beyond.
Why?
Day to day human lives are changing, driven by socio-cultural shifts reshaping the way people live, work and play.
To remain relevant and meaningful in society, computing and technology will need to adapt to serve a world with vastly different needs to anything we’ve known before.
How can Dell’s Experience Innovation Studio provide the business with a vision for what the future could look like and inspire it to align and adapt to stay relevant in that time frame?
We conducted strategic research to examine and evidence the STEEP factors driving long-term change and explore their impact on humans; arriving at a set of key inflection points that will impact the way we will live, work and play in 2035. The results were used to develop not one, but four future scenarios: The Probable, Possible, Problematic and Promising to provide Dell with a rounded and provoking view of the world in the future.
In a detailed far future scenarios report, brought to life by ‘day in the life’ fictions, insight analysis and an executive summary, we show how the long-term fallout of shifts today could reshape the global landscape of 2035 in four distinct trajectories to disrupt the role, purpose and direction of Dell’s brands and business, helping Dell identify future challenges, opportunities and threats against current thinking.
The report and scenarios act as a springboard for Dell to consider its place, purpose and viable business offering in a Probable, Possible, Problematic and Promising future. The insights provoke strategic thinking, insight derivation and action mapping for the future that help Dell make the most informed, rounded and innovative strategic decisions today.
The insights influence how Dell re-imagines its business and what plans to put in place today for their preferred future.
The scenarios and insights will also provide direct input into Dell’s Innovation Studio vision and beliefs and specific project based teams across design, innovation, software and hardware.
‘The Future Lab did an amazing job guiding us through a far-future project. They helped us sharpen the focus on a large and ambiguous project to ensure that we had actionable output. The work they did for us will serve as a backdrop for most of our projects in the next few years. They are a pleasure to work with in addition to being exceptional at their jobs.’
Lindsey Everett-Lawrence, Dell Global Innovation Studios.
Case Study: Bacardi Horizons 2030
Future Challenge: In a world transformed by technology, how can Bacardi harness innovation to maintain its leading position in 2030?
Why?
Bacardi globally has set the task of making the next 10 years the best ones yet; Bacardi calls this its BEST10 strategy.
To achieve its ambition, Bacardi needs to look beyond its current revenue streams and build the tools today to forge meaningful relationships with consumers in the future.
Senior leaders understood that technology is a crucial catalyst for change, and asked The Future Laboratory to investigate how technology will affect the way people will live, consume and socialise in 10 years. The objective was to inform, inspire and spark action today to help business leaders identify the growth strategies that will allow them to achieve their BEST10 strategy.
Through input from our Futures 1000 Panel, we researched and produced a Strategic Foresight Report, videos and marketing collateral aimed internally at senior business leaders. Horizons 2030 paints an emotive yet tangible picture of the technologies that will be commonplace and routine in the lives of consumers in 2030, and their everyday impact on people.
The foresights and insights are explored through four speculative day-in-the-life of a 2030 consumer scenarios in key markets such as Germany, India, China and the US, validated and debiased through our network of Cultural Navigators. The scenarios, written in first person, offer Bacardi a way to understand how commonplace technologies will change the way people live, work and play. The report identifies the strategic opportunities for Bacardi to continue to deliver on its purpose to Make Moments Matter in 2030 and beyond.
By looking externally into future consumers’ lives, Horizons 2030 offered Bacardi a consumer-led and future-informed perspective on new revenue models beyond beautiful liquids in beautiful bottles.
As a result, business leaders have a future toolkit of strategic opportunities to help them identify which business actions to focus on today, tomorrow and in the future. Mapped against the organisation’s existing initiatives, Horizons 2030 is helping to identify which initiatives need to start and which need to be expanded to ensure Bacardi achieves its BEST10 strategy.
Finally, storytelling has inspired senior leaders’ hearts and minds to look beyond the tried and tested into the groundbreaking where true innovation can grow.
Build your far futures strategy today – fill in the form to book your 30-minute clinic with our experts and let us help define your future. We have very limited space available.
