Foresight process in software businesses

Abstract

Corporate foresight is a value-creation tool that enables companies to survive in a competitive, ever-changing business environment. Foresight can be perceived as a company's capability to commit to continuous environmental scanning and respond quickly to discovered market threats and opportunities. This paper presents the results from a multiple-case study, in which data was collected through a series of workshops and interviews. Based on the foresight experiment in one company, it is evident that staff can discover meaningful business opportunities for their company via a facilitated workshop series. As a result of this study, the rolling foresight process is presented. Companies must conduct foresight as a continuous activity to: 1) actively scan the environment, identifying trends in consumer and customer behaviour, industrial trends, disruptions, emerging technologies, competitors, clients' needs, wild cards and weak signals; 2) interpret the identified signals and find opportunities and threats; 3) prospect the opportunities and threats and evaluate options for decision-making.