Foresight

Our world is changing and being ‘ahead of the game’ is very important for business success. Consider:

  • Cellphones and smart phones are a normal part of our everyday lives, and they operate in ways we would not have thought of a few years ago – GPS cellphones for restaurant reviews anyone?
  • The distance that people travel to work and fuel prices have steadily been increasing for some time. More people are choosing to work flexibly away from the office for part or all of the time. 
  • Large conferences or professional meetings are relying more on sponsorship to contribute towards the running costs.

All of these changes could have been and were foreseen to some extent by people who used them to help grow or improve their businesses.

We increase your understanding of the future in ways that can give your business an edge on the competition. We use proven techniques to help you imagine the future your business or service might be operating in, and to prepare for it.

How do we do this?

Firstly we work with you to define future trends that might affect your key objectives and goals. We select appropriate techniques to uncover the information that will be most useful in developing your business for: 

  • Projecting current statistics
  • Observing, collating and interpreting changes in technology or social patterns that could impact directly on your business (horizon scanning)
  • Developing future scenarios and exploring ways of positioning your activities for the future

We then help you to find ways to build these trends in to ‘business as usual’ for your organisation.

For an insight on using scenarios to plan, please see our resource on

Thinking ahead using resources

Our experience

We have worked with local and central government agencies to develop both numerical and qualitative forward views for their organisations. These have been used to shape their long term planning and future priorities.

We have been involved in the development of new directions for a number of organisations including: the National Library (document and image accessibility on line); an education service provider (future trends in teacher demand); anticipating international education market trends and finding innovative ways for delivering continuing education to busy health professionals (digital web-based resources).

To find out how we can help please contact Steve Vaughan - srv@insideoutworks.co.nz