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It may be difficult for firms to stay ahead of major changes going down in various areas akin to technology and society. Life is all the time moving fast. However, the ability to recognize recent trends early may give a company a big advantage over others. To make it more clear to you, I’ll discuss how you may develop a way of looking into the future before your competition does.
Understand how disruptive trends typically emerge
Most breakthrough trends don’t appear overnight. They typically start small and expand over time as enabling technologies advance and costs decline. Here are some examples: The rapid development of electrical vehicles after years of progress in battery technology. Another example is how video streaming services akin to Netflix have turn out to be mainstream as broadband Internet access has turn out to be more widespread and the cost of video streaming hardware has fallen.
By understanding how enabling technologies typically advance and prices decline, you may highlight areas where breakthroughs may occur in the coming years. You should look for technologies or business models that are starting to gain momentum but have not yet crossed the tipping point and achieved widespread adoption. These are the real candidates that might disrupt business as usual in the next five to ten years.
Expand your sources of knowledge
Most large firms focus mainly on their industry, looking for signals of upcoming changes. However, disruptions often come from beyond the boundaries of existing industries. To look at the greater picture, you wish to expand your sources of knowledge beyond your key industry peers and analysts.
Some areas price reviewing frequently include technology publications, VC investment reports, academic research, crowdfunding sites, discussion forums, technology demonstrations at events, and more. You can look for overlapping themes across sources that time to the trajectories of emerging technologies or business models.
Develop relationships outside your circle
Passively following different sources of knowledge can provide help to spot emerging trends, but you must also proactively develop relationships outside your current circle. You need to reach people from start-ups, universities, technology consortiums, investment firms, consulting and development centers, various industries and more. You can have coffee chats where you openly discuss emerging ideas without any agenda.
These relationships can definitely provide help to learn about changes earlier, before they reach your traditional industry reporting channels. The people you meet might also introduce you to others on the fringes of established areas who are experimenting with recent concepts. Their insights can point you to certain emerging trends before your competitors even know about them.
Apply design pondering methods to imagine future scenarios
Being aware of emerging opportunities is necessary, but we also need ways to imagine how they may evolve and potentially disrupt existing ways of doing things. Adopting design pondering methods will help with this. You also can launch cross-cutting projects where you bring together people from different roles and backgrounds by systematically brainstorming and prototyping potential future scenarios involving emerging technology combos or business model innovations.
Ask questions like: “If developments in areas A, B, and C reach certain milestones in the next five years, how might this impact our industry?” or “What new business models could emerge if input costs in area X dropped significantly?” This will help significantly.
Challenge your assumptions frequently
If you have an established company, it is easy to focus on short-term initiatives and incrementally improving what’s already working. However, maintaining the establishment may obscure the risks arising from emerging disruptions. You need to implement processes that frequently challenge your core assumptions about trends, customers, and business models.
Schedule short sessions specifically focused on questioning the fundamental assumptions that underpin your strategy and operations. Try running thought experiments to see what might cause your assumptions to break down when exposed to external forces. This is necessary because doing these exercises can prevent stagnation and help improve your ability to spot warning signs of potential disruptions.
Monitoring the status of latest technologies
Once you have identified a few recent technologies or business models that have the potential to be disruptive, focus on closely following their development. You can monitor several aspects akin to rate of improvement, cost decline, patents, published research, company financing activities, technology demonstrations, and pilot programs. Create easy tracking sheets or frequently updated dashboards to get a longitudinal view of your progress.
Know that you furthermore may need to pay close attention to breakout points where the trend development goes through the growth of the hockey stick. This could also be due to costs exceeding key thresholds or capabilities meeting minimum requirements for early adoption. These turning points can function impetus to reconsider strategic plans or intensify experimental initiatives exploring disruptive effects and countermeasures. You also need to always review your watchlist to improve your ability to spot rapidly growing threats and opportunities to gain a competitive advantage.
Expand testing recent ideas
Once you have identified a few technologies or business models that appear promising, it’s a good idea to start experimenting with them. You can try building small prototypes or running short pilots to get an early idea of how things might develop; for example, you may test ideas with employees or a small group of consumers. Gathering real-world experience with emerging trends helps provide a much clearer picture of their potential impact and weaknesses. Because it is often higher to learn recent things by doing, not only pondering or reading.
Any organization can improve its foresight by committing to consistently evaluating recent inputs and remaining open to alternatives. Those who make anticipating disruption a core competency might be less vulnerable and higher able to shape the future. Good luck!