Beyond the obvious: Building future-focused strategy

Sustaining and disruptive innovation has been a longtime demarcation of business strategy. The latter has dominated in the digital world, but currently, with digital in a maturity phase of growth, maintaining innovation becomes more popular. However, it is also a time of dramatic value chain that is shifting, and thus is precisely the time that companies should be refusing to follow disruptive, future-oriented strategy as an alternative. Future-oriented strategy is a strategy superpower, the means of mapping a course that a few have followed. And, in what is sure to be a decade of upheaval and transformation, it has never been more needed.

The optimal solution that strategy can produce is staying ahead of the pack, becoming the agenda and not the follower of the agenda. Nevertheless, at some point or other, every company is forced to be reactive instead of proactive and to be followers instead of leaders. Although the triggers are most commonly externalized, like the shift of marketing conditions or counter to the rival activity, the success of the response of a company and even the number of times it is pushed into the response-mode is predetermined with the strategy it has. To some extent, this can be attributed to the good strategy since it constantly responds to the market, and it is ready to take new initiatives, integrating strategy and implementation in one concerted effort.

Why Some Companies Appear Less Responsive

Have you ever wondered why there are certain companies that appear to be less responsive? In addition to the common perpetrators of uncertainty, complacency, and recalcitrant culture, this frequently happens due to the fact that such companies develop strategies that emphasize long term goals, even at the point of stagnating the potential of existing products and revenue, and in some instances even accelerating their stagnation. Such is future-oriented strategy.

But the strategy needs to work, which means that it needs operational capabilities way beyond a slick slide deck. This may need laser-intense management team to dictate a company culture that centers on innovation, risk taking, and the questioning of established wisdoms. Every industry possesses firms that establish the account with market-forming approach. This rule is especially applicable to digital entertainment since it is still at a comparatively young age, and it is influenced by technology. The leaders in digital entertainment have been the most frequently the companies that had future-oriented strategies, the initiatives that were launched before the market was fully fitted.

The Chess Grandmaster Approach

How then, do successful companies identify what is ahead when others can not? One such strategy that does not work is to attempt to follow in the footsteps of other companies. This would be based on the impact of the other company strategy and not the principles of causality upon which it may be based. Future-focused strategy involves a parallel line of thinking that grandmasters of chess would use to visualise the gameboard; the visualisation is one that is available of various existing future moves and counter moves. It involves the ability to look ahead of the trend or challenge at hand by tracing out the multiple-order ramifications in the future.

It is an art and science to anticipate the future, yet one works within a methodological form the last occurrence projects the guard rails, making it less likely that one goes wrong. They have created a framework to organise this process which is known as the multiple-order consequences framework.

How the Framework Works

The possible results are plotted under this model not only of what follows, but also of the various possibilities of consequences that may arise, and then of the consequences of those, and so on. The outcome is like a genealogical tree tracing out the myriad possibilities of the future. The next thing is then to subject each branch of possibilities to stress testing to narrow it down to one or two probable outcomes. This model is common in both analysis work and in consulting work, where one is trying to assist companies in defining their future threats and opportunities, and solutions to seek.

The multiple-order consequences framework is a good method of being in a position to perceive those futures ahead of others and carry out future-directed approach to provide on them even prior to their occurrence. It is the type of strategy that enabled:

• a DVD rental service to become the market leader in streaming video player
• a desktop social network to become the market leader in mobile social applications
• a computer software company to become a market leader in cloud, AI and games