| Business (536) |  |
| Business activity (8) | |
| Business administration (5) | |
| Business affairs (4) | |
| Business decision-makers (3) | |
| Business environment (31) | |
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and that as a consequence of participating in the process they were revising their own business and R&d strategy.
, business actors to involve themselves with an emerging technology, which is in turn often a precondition for it to mature through learning-by-doing
Industrial leaders consisted of R&d and business managers in the forestry-related industry. They assessed the proposed research issueswith regard to their industrial relevance and suitability forww-Net.
but also in the field business regarding e-commerce-related issues. 4 In summary, Delphi exercises focusing on the future of science and technology take the general regulatory framework into account as one kind of obstacle,
and business developments taken from the Seventh Japanese Technology foresight Report 48, already published in 2001, with regard to their expected time of realisation, their importance, the effectiveness of policy measures, like R&d support,
a business approach to the role of national standardization organizations, Kluwer Academic Publ. Boston, 1999.34 DIN:
when the technological, regulatory and business context of the (hopefully) growiin start-up/SME has matured, the company can switch towards roadmapping for incremental innovation.
a French MEMS business development consultancy. 20 There are attempts in The netherlands for innovation chain 3 building off micro
an academic perspective, Technovation 17 (8)( 1997) 417 426.6 H. J. Duus, Strategic business market forecasting, Strateg.
Change 8 may 1999) 173 182.7 P. Groenveld, Roadmapping integrates business and technology, Res. Technol. Manag. 40 (5 september October 1997) 48 55.8 D. E. Hussey, Glossary of techniques for strategic analysis, Strateg.
Mccarthy, Linking technological change to business needs, Res. Technol. Manag. 46 (2 march April 2003) 47 52.15 K. Matzler, M. Rier, H. H. Hinterhuber, B. Renzl, C. Stadler, Methods and concepts
Relatively speaking, this sector has received less attention than the business and higher education sectors. One barrier to understanding is the wide range of structures existing in Europe,
high costs, high uncertainty, technological inexperience, business inexperience, lengthy time to market, and the general destruction of firm competence 17,29, 30.
risk and uncertainties in new business creation and a project related to the climate change (CES. The case projects are positioned according to their important design dimensions (informative vs. instrumental outcomes;
development of proactive risk assessment methodologies for different corporate risk management purposes (identiffyin the vulnerability of corporate and process actions, managing the risks in occupational, industrial and environmental safety, managing business risks, etc.),
and how it may change the business or the environment around us. A paradigm shift and interesting methodological developments are seen for Technology assessment too:
and management of future uncertainties and risks in companies that are giving rise to new business 29.
as well as the drivers and bottlenecks of the ongoing business in a defined time perspective 29.
The ultimate benefit of this relatively light and fast roadmapping exercise is that the process forces one to think about all the important aspects of the new business creation.
Active involvement of the decision makers in the analysis allowed them to have a broad and realistic image about opportunities and risks related to the new (potential) business.
In addition, business, policy making and the whole broad spectrum of decision making call for future-oriented technology analysis as well as risk assessment. Foresight methods and activities approve the uncertainty linked to the different futures
in business and in the society in general is crucial for both FTA and risk assessment. There is, therefore, a common ground shared by both approaches.
Innorisk-project, www. vtt. fi/innorisk, Managing Opportunities, Risk and Uncertainties in New Business Creation Working Report, VTT Technical research Centre of Finland, Tampere
industrial and business barometers in its attempt to grasp future developments. The purpose of a technology barometer is to give data of how favorable and competitive the Finnish innovation environment is assessed to be now and in the future.
the changing role of knowledge-intensive work, innovations and business, and education structures. The first extensive societal issue relates to the role of knowledge-intensive work in Finnish society
The second themeof discussion ismore comprehensive and concerns the future development of innovation and business activities.
in basic technologies and business thinking alike, so as to generate product concepts with increasing initiative and courage.
Moreover the scope of innovation in policy-making will be extended from technological innovation merely towards business innovations and behavioural, organizational and different social innovations.
Index (Economic Freedom Network) Economic Sentiment Indicator (EC) Internal Market Index (EC) Business Climate Indicator (EC) Environment Environmental sustainability Index (World
Kerstin Cuhls is coordinator of the business area Foresight and Futures research in the Competence Center Innovation and Technology management and Foresight at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research in Karlsruhe, Germany.
because no viable options existed that would enable the business to address the threats the scenarios conveyed 32.
and practice focuses on business applications. A number of studies thus examine potential differences between scenario exercises in the public and private sectors.
and evolution of scenario techniques in long range business planning, Futures 37 (8)( 2005) 795 812.10 R. J. Lempert, S w. Popper, S. C
what are and what are not desirable future situations°Prioritising the choices that have to be made among the outcomes of Foresight Avoid the assumption that people have infinite plasticity toward new technology Increase trust between policy makers, business and the general public,
many leaders in business, the professions and government; competent, self-reliant and efficient, but tend to be materialistic,
Business as usual approaches are not capable of addressing these challenges. Smart decision making linked to the ability to innovate calls for the anticipation and exploration of future directions through a societal debate within policy making,
and business decision making a much stronger orientation and capability to address the future in a more systematic way.
Harvard Business Review, no. 33 (May June: pp. 79 91. Reger, G. 2001. Technology foresight in companies:
business and research were invited to the Stakeholderworkshop with the aim of identifying the main challenges facing Luxembourg over the coming decade.
National priorities National priorities (Research areas)( Research domains) Innovation in services Business service design and innovation Fostering the economic and legal environment for Innovation performance and development of the financial systems
and from (high-tech) business contributed to the process. The discussion was intended to develop a comprehensive strategy
which experts panels focused their work (see Figure 1):(1) RTI in business;(2) Research priorities and knowledge transfer;(
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Trade-offs between policy impacts of future-oriented analysis 959 Panel 1 FTI in business Integrative concept for RTI-strategy Panel
academia and business and Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 960 K. M. Weber et al. several hundred participants.
3) In revising the City of Vienna business promotion principles‘ZIT 08plus'more attention will be given to crosscutting issues of RTI policies,
He studied economics and social sciences and holds a Phd fromvienna University of Economics and Business.
developing organizational foresight in the knowledge economy',11 13 july 2002, University of Strathclyde Graduate school of Business, Glasgow, UK.
Paper presented at 3rd Strathclyde international conference on organisational foresight, 16 18 august 2007, University of Strathclyde Graduate school of Business, Glasgow, UK.
Today, major organizations are standardizing certain strategic technology and business decision processes. Stagegaat approaches set forth explicit decisions to be sequenced toward particular ends (e g.,
, business) databases. As such it represents one advanced form of technology monitoring. This information can serve other FTA needs to various degrees:!
Systematize strategic business decision processes.!Mandate explicit technology information products be provided for decision stages in such processes.!
life control and social innovations 2. Services and service innovations Business competence in services Culture and adventure services Renewal of public services 3. Well-being and health Physical exercise and nutrition research Mental health
Global economy Assessment and management of global risks Impacts of business globalisation on national economies Management of innovation processes panel reports. 5 The first part of the synthesis report summarised selected driving forces
Technology and Innovation7 in fields that are important to the future of Finnish society and business and industry.
but crossed this with an interest in the evaluation of impacts and in the use of FTA in two domains, business and higher education 9, 10.
or even catastrophic effects in business systems but that are difficult if not impossible to predict.
writing in strategy+business 1, refers to these new types and levels of risk as interdependent risks.
The coming together of experts from a variety of technical and scientific domains as well as from a variety of business-process arenas (including research, marketing, management,
but inevitable twists and turns of their business push them to make...critical decisions in real time.
Our description of the scanning process begins with the collection of data points from the business, cultural,
Business processes! Science! Technology. The breadth of scope inherent in the diversity of the categories represents one of the most important strengths of the scanning process.
and areas of expertise will miss important signs from the broader business, cultural, and technological environments.
and that designers frequently have much to say about what that environment looks like 8. Many abstracts deal with innovative business processes
and chaos theory in scientific as well as business applications turn up in abstract sets on a regular basis. Biotechnology and nanotechnology topics are continuing players in the abstract sets.
SRIC-BI's staff includes experts with backgrounds in anthropology, business, economics, international affairs, communication arts, marketing, information technology, life sciences,
Strategy & Business 34 (2003 Spring) 71.2 Stephen Haeckel, Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense
Mckinsey Quarterly 2 (2002) 48 57.7 Mark Buchanan, Power laws and the new science of complexity management, Strategy & Business 34 (2003 Spring) 76.
K. M. Patton/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1082 1093 1092 8 Jessie Scanlon, Big business:
These multidisciplinary and cross-business function programs are aimed at technology leaps in strategic areas. Projects are not the focus of detailed selection effort the primary issue is one of addressing broad technology goals
nor are targeted they directly on specific business units in the corporate structure. They also play the principal role in the creation and management of portfolios of research projects.
L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper/Futures 43 (2011) 243 251 247 success for business at least is defined very clearly in market terms,
society and technology which may impact upon the business and its innovative activities. Rollwagen et al. describe this process in Deutsche bank which they summarise as‘‘Foresight explores
and a disconnection between the development and application of new technologies and the societal and business issues which are wanted by the public and their political representatives.
At the level of the firm there are problems of short-term and reactive thinking caused by a preoccupation with immediate business problems
and to manage the interfaces with business and other stakeholders represents a further barrier which may be rooted in institutional structures and limited human resource capabilities among other reasons 33.
, S. Schneider, Improving the business impact of foresight, Technology analysis & Strategic management 20 (3)( 2008) 339.29 P. Becker, Corporate Foresight in Europe:
10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.004 sector agenda setting, it is also ever more common practice in business, nongovernmental and international organisations.
future-oriented elaboration of factors affecting the Nordic business and development environment in ICT. Fixed Structured discussion and the generation of new ideas in the workshops Autonomous Creative brainstorming and ideation in the different scenario and roadmapping workshops.
and a survey was launched to opinion-formers leaders in business, government, media, NGOS and academia.
business actors and researchers from all EU Member States responded to the on-line Delphi study. In addition, more than 600 stakeholders in a various EU Member States were addressed in a series of national seminars.
but also by development of new services and new ways of doing business and of interacting with citizens 16.
and by commissioning a survey that is consulting leaders in governments, business NGOS and the academic sector.
and use of FTA in the public sector there has been substantial growth in foresight and FTA in business.
and others 5 7. The nuclear threat was seed the for the current call for new forms of governance to cope with the regulation of S&t that is now embedded in the combined phenomena of globalisation and glocalisation of business, with effects on every aspect of modern
-Increase trust between policy makers, business and the general public, and consequently, reducing the number of occasions
communities and other stakeholders to do business offering a concrete way for a business to identify social issues that matter to its stakeholders
The underlying rationale often risks confusing public relations with social and business results. All four schools of thought share the same weakness 29:
they focus on the tension between business and society rather than on their interdependence. Each creates a generic rationale that is not tied to the strategy and operations of any specific company or the places in
prioritise and address the social issues that matter most or the ones on which it can make the biggest impact. 5. 1. Research on corporate social responsibility The business case for CSR can be divided into theoretical and empirical categories 30
and managers approach the business case for CSR in practice. Empirical studies suggest that the relationship between financial performance
and (ii) there are even fewer studies that have concentrated explicitly on the business case for CSR as a driver of corporate sustainability management 30.5.2.
The business case for sustainability The business case for sustainability is sector-specific. It is difficult for companies to build reasons for CSR with its apparent limited relevance to social and environmental risks and opportunities to a firms'core business.
CSR's numerous and highly fragmented stakeholder demands and lack of basic organisational capacities to collect
One of the assumptions behind CSR is that business outcomes and social objectives can be aligned more or less,
Tools and standards to support business sustainability The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines have created performance indicators (both quantitative and qualitative),
and the UN Global Compact Initiative (UNGCI) in the GRI G3 guidelines. 3 The UNGCI, launched by the United nations in 2000 in partnership with business,
It is a means to make contribution towards more responsible and sustainable business behaviour. Its selling point is that SRI funds allow investors to invest according to more ethical values
and standards for responsible business conduct in a variety of areas including employment and industrial relations;
if they work together making CSR hard to distinguish from day-to-day business of the firm 29.
The more a social issue tied to the firm's business the greater the opportunity to leverage the company's resources and capabilities,
The assumption that CSR can be defined as business decision linked to ethical values 37 presupposes that stakeholders
thus social and economic goals into alignment and improving a firm's long-term business prospect. 6 Responsive CSR comprises two elements 29:
In business this is summarised as the triple bottom line or the creation of shared value through reconciling economic
/Futures 43 (2011) 279 291 287 business and society if consistently invested in social initiatives
Integrating business and social needs takes more than good intentions and strong leadership: it requires adjustments in organisation, reporting relationships, and incentives.
Few companies have engaged operating management in processes that identify and prioritise social issues, based on their salience to business operations and their importance to the company's competitive context 29.
Associated Business Programs, 1976.6 H. Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1962.7 H. Kahn, A. Weiner, The Year 2000:
Fourth Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, European communities, 2007.20 C. H. Cagnin, An information architecture to enable business sustainability.
Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality, 4th ed.,Mcgraw-hill, New york, 1970.26 BSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business for Social Responsibility, 2003 http://www. bsr
. org/BSRSERVICES/CSR. cfm#ZURICH. 27 C. Shelton, Quantum leaps, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997.28 NNSR, Novo Nordisk Sustainability Report, 2002 http://www
the link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility, Harvard Business Review (2006. 30 O. Salzmann, A. Ionescu-Somers, U. Steger, The business case for corporate sustainability:
literature review and research options, European Management Journal 23 (1)( 2005) 27 36.31 U. Steger, A. Ionescu-Somers, O. Salzmann, The economic foundations of corporate
a typology and analysis, Business and Society 36 (4)( 1997) 419 429.33 K. Davis, Can business afford to ignore social responsibilities?
/Futures 43 (2011) 279 291 290 35 M. E. Porter, M. R. Kramer, The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy, Harvard Business Review (2002.
creating value, Harvard Business Review (1999. 37 S. A. Aaronson, J. Reeves, The European response to public demands for global corporate responsibility, National policy Association, USA (2002.
Now it has links with big business and has achieved a degree of respectability in some circles and even in the marketplace).
policies and business focus over periods of several years that usually have global reach. What is interesting about trends is that normally most players,
and create or drive change within one's business or institutional environment. These tend to be more immediate and relevant and distinct to different types of stakeholders
innovations and business-institutional strategies 6. A critical concept associated with being a driver is the level of uncertainty.
in order to increase the ability of social groups to adapt to surprises arising in turbulent business or social environments.
Such sudden and unique incidents might constitute turning points in the evolution of a certain business social trend or system.
and provides an opportunity for small entrepreneurs to enter the telephone business with relatively little investment.
and similar innovations create powerful forces that change the business and social environments and personal information practices;
but not confirmed changes that may later become more significant indicators of critical forces for development, threats, business and technical innovation.
or government respondents see the prospective developments in longer or shorter time horizons than the business respondents?
Increased surveillance smart security, disruptive surveillance technology big business Energy 42 Peak oil Growth of renewable energy:
whereas the majority of the respondents from business envisaged shorter time horizon for the emergence of trends (between 2008 and 2015.
whereas the figure is exactly the opposite for the Business respondents, who expect low level of controversy. 3. 2. 3. Drivers of change The main orientations of the drivers are represented with the following radar diagram.
More balanced distribution was observed among Business respondents and Students. Impact assessment. Similar to the patterns observed regarding trends
On the contrary, the respondents from Government, Business, and other Table 3 Examples of drivers. Examples of critical drivers by category A b c Society & Culture 46 Increased citizen participation with the help of collaborative Web tools International mobility of educated workforce improves cultural
the time of occurrence for wild cards indicates parallelism between the respondents from Academia, Business and Other affiliations,
and material world via molecular and selfassemmblin entities Secularism in science overvalues in religion End of Moore's law Business
%A high and balanced participation in discontinuity assessment was observed among the Governmental and Business respondents. Impact assessment.
NGOS and Students were identical, where about 52%of the respondents suggested medium level of likelihood. 50%of the respondents from Government and Business stated high likelihood of occurrence.
This time Academia and Business suggested that most of the discontinuities would emerge from 2016 to 2025
The majority of the Business respondents have a longer term time horizon (beyond 2025) compared to the respondents from Academia
Recent crises and the threat of major longer-term changes are fostering a view that business as usual approaches are not capable of addressing these challenges.
and the taxi driver may go out of business (selection). Therefore agents need to optimise their actions-to move
Drivers who don't make enough profit go out of business Taxies that are damaged reduce drivers'profits Die
The Essential Guide to Complexity theory in Business and Management, Spiro Press, London. Bell, W. 2003), Foundations of Futures studies:
Rami'rez, R. and Van der Heijden, K. Eds)( 2008), Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New methods for Applying Scenarios, Earthscan, London.
These included researchers, officials and representatives of various business areas, as well as many NGOS. The project team from FFRC consisted of five researchers, with experience both in methodologies applied in the exercise and in climate and energy issues.
and try to break the trend of business-as usual. Backcasting scenarios are usually relatively long-term (20-100 years)( Robinson, 1990, p. 820),
NGOS, energy business and researchers of various fields, as well as representatives from various business areas. The results of the first questionnaire were sent in advance to those who had confirmed their participation to the workshop.
For the workshop, people were divided into groups of eight to ten persons, and each group had the same task to solve.
4. Technology is the key (business-as usual scenario, solutions relying on decentralised energy production and increased use of nuclear power).
and diminishing personal transport needs Self-sufficiency, relying on homegrown renewable materials Business as usual, relying on heavy industry Economic growth Stable growth Stable growth Slow growth Stable growth Basis of economic structure (industry) Energy scarce service sector,
now that could, in theory, put a lot of the $40 billion magnetic disk industry out of business. Q It is clear that two applications are highlighted for expected short-term commercial use
Charles Lieber's group 14 Cientifica is the business information and consulting arm of CMP Cientifica, providing global nanotechnology business intelligence and consulting services to industry and investors worldwide.
During these few years Nantero received a rather extensive media attention (37 articles in total) from technology as well as business journals.
and Business administration with a specialisation in Small Business and Entrepreneurship, both from the University of Groningen, The netherlands.
and it is geared to satisfy the real estate demands of citizens, business and institutions. The value chain is kept under surveillance by a continuous feedback process.
Unlike other disciplines, such as economics and business science, scenario planning is not very common In law. This kind of narrative exercise tends not to be very appealing to the legal mind,
Finally, Futurict will also build a‘‘Global Participatory Platform''in order to support the decision making of policy makers, business people and citizens,
In a second step, these roadmaps shall be adapted to the business culture of small and medium enterprises (SME.
and too much of a business-as usual mentality (Hames 2011b). He, therefore, suggested making more use of approaches that allow for exploring such levels of thinking.
'which regards the identity of the components of the business (micro) environment. Vecchiato distinguishes between‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change
Cagnin and Loveridge focus on innovation networks by suggesting a dynamic framework of continual learniin that enables a business to develop a capacity to anticipate
using FTA thinking to shape a pathway of a business towards sustainable development. The objective of the framework is to help organisations create a tailored,
and can always be managed as a fixed cost of doing business. True uncertainty, in contrast, emerges
Knight maintained that most business decisions are made in unique contexts that make statistical inference impossible and
itwas marketed mainly for business use. Itwas often understood either as a newform of telegraphy or as a broadcast medium.
In this regard, there is no difference between, for example, business organisations and biological organisms. Profitability may be a boundary condition for survival for business firms in modern capitalism,
Harvard Business Review (January February: 43 53. Bowker, G, . and S l. Star. 1999. Sorting things out:
Similarly, any business has a certain momentum that will ensure its continuity for an uncertain time into the future in the absence of some new
and rejuvenating feature to its business endeavour and sphere. Rejuvenation creates the need for new artefacts to sell into existing or new markets;
but above all else to ensure successful continuity of the business based on securing future profits and a strong share price.
Again particular kinds of expertise are needed based on the three components of foresight that run throughout the business's activities,
which the business has either strong or weak interdependencies or interlocking arrangements of a quite different character (Cagnin and Loveridge 2012).
business government and elsewhere, is already possible but limited by human and search engine factors. Data mining is far from a new idea, the possibilities
based on intellectual property, for business growth and business advantage. Ozcan Saritas is a Research fellow at Manchester Institute of Innovation research (MIOIR) in Manchester Business school, UK.
Business planning for an uncertain future. Newyork: Pergamon Press. Cagnin, C. H, . and D. Loveridge. 2012.
A business framework for enabling networks to evolve towards sustainable development. Technology analysis & Strategic management 24, no. 8:
Copernicus Books, Springer Science+Business Media. Cooke, R. M. 1991. Experts in uncertainty: Opinion and subjective probability in science.
Business studies have developed a set of techniques to assess the future for strategic decisionmakkin (Kappel 2001;
Roadmapping integrates business and Technology research Technology management 40, no. 5: 48 55. Guice, J. 1999. Designing the future:
Improving the business impact of foresight. Technology analysis & Strategic management 20, no. 3: 337 49. Salo, A a. 2001.
'which regards the core identity of the components of the business (micro) environment. We then distinguish between‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change
The strategic management theory expands the concept of task environment by defining the broader concept of business micro environment
and technological (PEEST) landscapes that surrooun the business micro environment and today are referred commonly to as the business macro environment (Fahey and Randall 1998).
Strategic foresight: practices and techniques The challenge of coping with increasing uncertainty encouraged new analytical approaches to decision-making and long-range planning:
Firm Business Foresight activities started Philips Consumer electronics Early 1990s BASF Chemicals Mid-1990s Daimler Automotive Late 1970s Siemens Consumer Products,
and articles and prior studies in the business press and scientific journals. Second, company archives such as internal memos
and the overall chemical industry and subsequently elaborating regional and business scenarios in relation to each specific geographic and business area of the firm.
and Asia) and countries, by breaking down global scenarios into the firm's main sectors and business areas,
These country and business scenarios derive from a more focused analyssis which considers a larger set of framework variables,
but much shorter for sector and business scenarios. Daimler has developed also a scenario-based system
and mobility business and are carried out at a global level or for a specific region over a 10 15-year perspective.
These scenarios aim to figure out the likely evolution of main business segments of the firm,
and potential business areas and for assessing investment (and divestment) decisions for Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 789 expanding
(or downsizing) operations in the main business and geographic areas of the firm. A notable corporate-level example has been the decision to withdrawfrom the pharmaceutical industrry Notwithstanding the positive outlook of both demography and demand growth,
Future pharmaceutical R&d activities also promised to require huge investmennts so implying that resources had to be shifted from other, more attractive, business areas.
At business and operational levels, strategic foresight supports the definition of target features for enhancing products and services,
which progresssivel links macro drivers of change with specific management objectives and business issues. The outputs from foresight activities provide a wide basis of information which explores longaan medium-term changes in customers'needs and lifestyles,
as major changes in technologies and ensuing customer demand are again continuously scrambling the boundaries of the business.
These different pieces of insight are matched finally through an interactive process that brings the social researchers from Philips Design and the technologists from Philips Research together with the business managers from all the product divisions of the company.
technology, and business) are taken into account. Foresight activities usually cover a 10-year time horizon, while emerging trend investigations are scheduled yearly to fit in with the annual strategy calendar.
where a specific research unit (an‘Innovation Field')has been established for each of the company business segments.
and storage and started to develop and to experiment with innovative product concepts in all its business divisions.
Initially, one of the company business groups is targeted as the‘buyer'for a specific market opportunity,
and if an innovative idea does not‘fit'with an existing business group, it is allocated to the‘Siemens Technology Accelerator'(part of the Corporate Technology Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 791 division),
Most business groups also have their own venture activity groups, which cooperate in the experimentation and development of innovative ideas, newproduct concepts, and prototypes.
All the firms of our sample were able to detect promptly the key drivers of change in their business.
this regards the impact of drivers of change on the identity of the main activities of the value chain and the main components of the business (micro) environment, that is, rivals, suppliers, customers, substitute products,
The key drivers of change for example, rise of new rivals from emerging countries and financial crisis had relevant consequeence on the evolution of the main components of the business (micro) environment and thus on the organisation.
these drivers of change did not affect either the identity of these components or the identity of the main activities of value chain of the chemical or the automotive business. 6 Over the last two decades,
who from the beginning has full awareness about the rules of the game and the cards in the pack (i e. boundaries of the business identity of the key components of the industry).
drivers of change in the consumer electronics business of Philips (or the broader ICT business in the case of Siemens) affected the identity of the main components of the micro environment itself and thus brought about‘boundary'uncertainty.
Who is in the business? How can a firm create and capture value? By using the previous analogy of a card game,
operating in the consumer electronic business in the 2000s could be compared to the case of a player who still has to learn both the rules of the game
and enhance the traditioona identity of the main components of the business micro environment, leading to incremental developments in the value chain, products, and services.
(and needed to know) about the boundaries of their business. Given their prior experience in the chemical and automotive industries,
they were able to directly address uncertainty regarding the evolution of the main components of the business and the impact on the organisation (effect uncertainty) and the best options for coping with these drivers (response uncertainty).
suppliers and customers thanks to our long experience of the chemical business, we engaged in anticipating the likely structure of the industry
managers at Philips and Siemens had to address the crucial task of identifying the new boundaries of their business.
which help managers to figure out the (new) identity of the main components of the business micro environment and the new activities (and products and services) of the value chain.
A senior manager of Philips emphasised In our business foresight must address an essential prerequisite before using traditional techniques like scenarios:
and the new players who are entering the business. Only after that boundary uncertainty has been solved
The definition of the boundaries of the business serves exactly to fix the key decisions for future growth,
mature industries might also be affected by technologgica discontinuities bringing about major shifts in the boundaries of the business.
and how to renew managerial beliefs about the boundaries of their business. Notes 1. Relevant examples are GBN (Global Business Network) in the USA
and EIRMA (European Industrial research Management Association) in the European union. 2. A significant number of managers of the firms we studied pointed out that they had great difficulty in finding
what matters (compared with wild cards) is the nature of their impact on the boundaries of the business. 7. Of course,
and bringing about major shifts in the boundaries of the business. What we mean is that, in the last two decades,
Improving the business impact of foresight. Technology analysis & Strategic management 20, no. 3: 337 49. Roveda, C, . and R. Vecchiato. 2008.
Harvard Business Review 63, no. 5: 73 90. Wiltbank, R.,N. Dew, S. Read, and S d. Sarasvathy. 2006.
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