A look through the crystal ball

We are living in a time named the exponential revolution, spurred by the fast pace of technological developments. With the mega trends of globalization and urbanization becoming increasingly prevalent, concepts of time and distance are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Change is the only constant, but the question is how do we react to these changes? We now have to look to the future for answers and work back from there, because extrapolating trends in present and the past just doesn't suffice anymore. Missing out on a single disruptive change in the course of time, would result in significantly different possibilities.

In the past, we have always been learning in retrospect: committing the mistake first, before correcting it later. We had been adopting a narrowed mindset of our own worlds within our world, looking to satisfy one's own short-term needs rather than looking at the greater good. However, with experience, we have learnt that this is not an effective way of living at all. We have identified many other areas which require our attention such as sustainability. Social issues such as cultural sensitivity and ethicality are poised to become the next big factor affecting decision making.

That is notwithstanding which, there has been significant changes to the global economy in recent times. There has been the rise of Asian countries to knock European countries off their pedestal, a shift in consumer preferences towards a greater transparency of businesses, improved connectivity of technology as well as the environmental struggle of the 21st century.

With the ever-changing forces that shape the global business environment, it is hard to get an absolute answer of what needs to be done now. This is where a greater emphasis on the future forecasting can help to provide companies with a general direction to work towards. Through a renewed understanding of the general direction of the company, we are now able to prioritize our limited resources accordingly, and thus matching capabilities to possibilities. As such, forecasting methods can be seen to be a driver of positive change if correctly predicted, by providing a direction to work towards.

This is not to say that forecasting methods should be a clear cut direction which the company should take. At the end of the day, the future is unpredictable - there is no one size fits all kind of method. The appropriate forecasting method used varies from industry to industry, there is a need to understand what is the desired outcome of the future predictions before applying the different foresight techniques. There should also be a constant reviewing of the methods after every few years, to either confirm the direction headed still remains feasible, or to steer the direction back onto track.

There were a few interesting methods that were shown today that I would have liked to talk about, but futurology in particular. I found it really intriguing that futurology was compared to the likes of science fiction, when futurology was deemed to be one of the key factors behind determining strategical planning for companies and countries alike. Something that holds so much significance, but yet being compared to the likes of a story book. It just seems as though impossible tasks have become nothing but a possible future, where the realm of imagination reign supreme - If you can envision it, you can conceptualize it. I would rate this session an 8/10 for the opening my eyes to the many areas of forecasting.

Perhaps I should've taken a deeper interest in science fiction when I was younger...