Futures intelligence is a key component of all successful decision making, strategy work or innovation. It provides its users with analytical knowledge about future changes, trends and their potential impacts. This is the first part of our Futures Intelligence blog series.

The uncertainties surrounding the US elections have led to increased volatility, urging organisations in various industries to reassess their operations in the face of potential policy and regulatory shifts. Foresight methodologies offer various collaborative and interactive tools that can help organisations make sense of the key changes, manage risks and discover new opportunities.

While the value of data is rising, the loss of privacy in the digital era is becoming a reality. But giving up personal data requires trust: consumers need to be able to trust organisations to handle their data ethically and keep it safe from hackers, and other cyber threats – but also from the more obscure purposes organisations themselves might have.

The new presidential term in the US will have structural, long-lasting impacts on the global system, potentially shifting organisational priorities and operational environments.

Our team of futurists have created an interactive foresight radar with 50+ cross-industry trends, enabling teams to see the interconnections between different phenomena and collaboratively assess the implications of the election outcome from their organisation’s point of view.

The digitalised and highly interconnected world is enormously vulnerable to seemingly invisible small attacks. The increasing value of data and service platforms, and the emergence of the internet of things, will speed up the growth of cyber hazards. Many possible but improbable drivers and events may impact the direction of the trend of cybersecurity spending.

As more and more consumers demand sustainable products, manufacturers and policymakers are urged to respond to their needs and change the current linear growth model. With the “Right to repair” movement and self-healing materials, we may soon witness products with a longer lifetime, and a rapid transition towards the circular economy.

What is the right time to go to an emerging market? If you are too early, the markets are not ready, and you end up losing time and money. If you are late, someone else will grasp the lion´s share of the growing market, and you end up to be just a follower. Hence, how to know when the trend is real and the market is ready?

With the accelerating pace of technological advances and an increasingly disruptive innovation landscape, it may be difficult to assess whether something is just hype or an actual signal of a transformative change. The market may not be ready for it, it may not be technically feasible, or perhaps the said technology or product doesn’t address a well-defined need.

Attitudes towards gender are changing. Consumers are no longer willing to buy into gender clichés that have been used to promote products and services for decades. To reflect this cultural shift, businesses are turning to gender-neutral design and advertisement.

Futures and foresight-oriented discussions have a tendency to focus on specific industries. Having an in-depth understanding of key trends and directions within one’s industry is a must, however, a too heavy focus on industry-specific approaches can also be limiting.

Compared to one-off projects, building internal foresight capacities helps institutions place foresight at the very core of the organizational culture.

Although wider culinary options are pleasing us, unhealthy diets are inviting chronic illnesses and various health risks. We are urged to eat healthier while the emergence of new technologies and ingredients are rapidly changing our food world. Would you change your diet if your doctor would prescribe the secret ingredient for a healthy life?