Look to the past

1 “Our immediate history can give us indications as to the future,” said Jo Causon, director of marketing and corporate affairs for the Chartered Management Institute. “For example, the past ten years have brought faster product innovation, greater speed to market and better communications. That's going to continue and accelerate.” Strategy planners should monitor big trends, such as population growth, climate change and the rise of technology to judge how they will affect the business. “The difficulty is defining the timing and the magnitude,” said Jean-Michel Cossery, the chief marketing officer of General Electric. “We knew five years ago that the UK housing market would crash. The question is by how much.”

Do your research

2 Scanning the horizon should be the job of everyone in an organisation, Ms Causon said. “Read reports, read innovation magazines, go to events that are not directly related to your business.” When a company spots a trend, it should commission research to test consumer opinions, she advised. “In economically challenging times, we often cut things such as R&D. I would strongly suggest that that is not the way to go,” she added.

Accept uncomfortable truths

3 “When businesses miss the future, it is rare that the future was unpredictable - rather, that it was unpalatable,” said Gary Hamel, a visiting professor at the London Business School and founder of the Management Lab, a research community. He cited the music industry's failure to believe that digital downloads would take off, which led to years of denial and litigation before companies began to seek alternative business models. “The problem with predicting the future is usually not seeing the data, but reading it,” said Hamish Scott, a programme director at Ashridge Business School. “Often what gets in the way of believing it is whether you are willing to change,” Mr Scott said.

Bring in discordant voices

4 A danger is that everyone in an industry holds the same core beliefs, Professor Hamel said. Industry groups often produce reports that simply confirm the consensus opinion, Professor Hamel added. He said: “When a majority of people in a company, industry or society, become financially vested in a particular trend it becomes increasingly hard to say ‘Maybe this won't continue'. Be explicit about the shared dogmas and orthodoxies that everybody takes for granted, that can blind you to the future.” Mr Scott advocated bringing in outsiders who are prepared to ask awkward questions and point out the “black swans”.

Visit the fringes

5 Innovation happens outside the mainstream. “Spend a week or two each year immersing yourself in places where you are going to be surprised, whether it is Silicon Valley or Asia,” Professor Hamel said.

Plan for scenarios

6 What would you do if the web crashed? Scenario planning, a stalwart of business strategy, is making a comeback, according to Mr Scott. He said: “ is a big thing among corporate planning departments because the future is so uncertain. Think of all the possible eventualities and make sure that you have got something in your back pocket for each one.” And be careful not to miss the obvious. In the 1990s, Shell was famous for its scenario planning, but nevertheless did not spot that supermarkets would become the main distributors of petrol, Professor Hamel said.

Gamble

7 Mr Cossery, of General Electric, has a simple rule: of every five new ideas started by the company, two should fail. He said: “If our strategy team is looking only at projects that we know are going to succeed, it means we are not bold or inventive enough, we are risk-averse.” Mr Scott agreed, saying: “Strategy is gambling, and gamblers have a portfolio of investments - they do not bet on one horse.”

Move with customers

8 A company has to wait for customers to be ready before launching a product. At General Electric, “digitalising” healthcare took years, Mr Cossery said. The company is now working on medical scanners for diseases that cannot yet be cured, such as Alzheimer's, so that when pharmaceutical companies invent the drugs, the diagnostic tools are ready.

Collaborate

9 Predicting the future should not be left to futurologists, who “can be detached from reality”, Mr Scott said. Meanwhile at General Electric, economists, market analysts and PhD students are brought together to discuss future trends. “When we put all this knowledge together it is like reading The Economist six months in advance,” Mr Cossery said. “If you bring specialists together, then you will get what you are looking for.”

If you cannot predict, prepare

10 Businesses must subscribe to “chaos theory”, according to Mr Scott. “Plans need to be incredibly flexible because we do not know how all the predictable factors will combine in any one year, industry, country,” he said. Professor Hamel said: “Successful leaders have the humility to recognise that the future will make monkeys of us all.”

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