Embracing the avalanche of change: How the insights industry can constructively engage with uncertainty to meet the future with confidence

David Smith and Adam Riley

Explores the future of scenario planning for the insights industry in terms of factors affecting change and what skills and mindsets will be required.

Preface

Let's stop future-proofing and trying to keep out the future, and start building resilience by constructively engaging with uncertainty. In this paper, we outline plausible possible futures for the insights industry, and advise on how to navigate towards a successful future.

Introduction

Predicting, particularly when it is about the future, is difficult; This was the rather quizzical comment once made by Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr. In our world, which is experiencing greater volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity ("VUCA"), predicting the shape of what is to come in two or three years (let alone 15 years), would seem ambitious if...

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