Organizations today are being challenged to make sense of changes in environments that, now more than ever, are described as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). They are also being driven to understand how the future will evolve and what impact it will have not only on the organizations themselves, but also on industries and societies. In recent decades a field has emerged to support organizations in addressing these challenges: strategic foresight. This book is a comprehensive introduction to strategic foresight. It presents a history of the field and explains the main principles in thinking about the future. The book describes how organizations can apply strategic foresight, and explains how it relates to other fields such as strategy, innovation and leadership, highlighting the relevance of strategic foresight not only for organizations but also for individuals, particularly managers and leaders. Grounded in the theoretical foundations of strategic foresight, the book reflects the latest academic research and explores practical applications in different contexts. It draws on more than two decades of experience that the author has in the field as a researcher, a consultant and in the corporate context. This is essential reading for managers and leaders of public and private organizations who want to establish strategic foresight practices, as well as students of foresight and managers in the fields of innovation, research & development and marketing.

This book is about the challenges that emerge for organizations from an ever faster changing world. While useful at their time, several management tools, including classic strategic planning processes, will no longer suffice to address these challenges in a timely and comprehensive fashion. While individual management tools are still valid to solve specific problems, they need to be employed based on a clear understanding of what the greater challenge is and how they need to be combined and prioritized with other approaches. In order to do so, companies can apply the clarity of thinking from the military with regard to which leadership level is responsible for what and how these levels need to interact in order to produce a single aligned response to an outside opportunity or threat. Finally, the tool of business wargaming, while known for some time, proves to be an ideal approach to quickly and effectively bring all leadership levels together, align them around a common objective and lay the groundwork for effective implementation of targeted responses that will keep the organization competitive and in the game for the long run. The book offers a comprehensive introduction to business wargaming, including a historical account, a classification of different types of games and a number of specific real-world examples. This book is targeted at practicing managers dealing with the aforementioned challenges, as well as for students of business and strategy at every level.

Industry consolidation, mergers, changes to business models, the emergence of new threats all require managers to understand highly complex situations, assess risk and opportunity and make informed decisions. How can senior managers do this effectively when so often they are wrestling with brand new scenarios? One of the emerging solutions is business wargaming. Daniel F. Oriesek and Jan Oliver Schwarz provide the first comprehensive look at wargaming as a business tool in a book that explores the anatomy and success factors of a typical wargame. The authors explain how and when wargaming can be used to test strategies, plan and prepare for crises, manage change or increase your organization's ability to anticipate and adapt for the future. Creating imaginative and credible scenarios, and testing them against smart opponents who are eager to find holes and counter your strategy, allows you to learn about a plan or a new venture in the security of the conference room rather than learning the hard way when you go live. Business wargames are sophisticated but they are also very demanding in terms of time and resources. Business Wargaming: Securing Corporate Value will enable you to assess the potential value of the technique for your own organization, to understand what you will be committing to and develop an informed business case and brief for working with the organization that will facilitate the game.

Organizations today are being challenged to make sense of changes in environments that, now more than ever, are described as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). They are also being driven to understand how the future will evolve and what impact it will have not only on the organizations themselves, but also on industries and societies. In recent decades a field has emerged to support organizations in addressing these challenges: strategic foresight. This book is a comprehensive introduction to strategic foresight. It presents a history of the field and explains the main principles in thinking about the future. The book describes how organizations can apply strategic foresight, and explains how it relates to other fields such as strategy, innovation and leadership, highlighting the relevance of strategic foresight not only for organizations but also for individuals, particularly managers and leaders. Grounded in the theoretical foundations of strategic foresight, the book reflects the latest academic research and explores practical applications in different contexts. It draws on more than two decades of experience that the author has in the field as a researcher, a consultant and in the corporate context. This is essential reading for managers and leaders of public and private organizations who want to establish strategic foresight practices, as well as students of foresight and managers in the fields of innovation, research & development and marketing.