Scenarios in Business

As organizations operate in an increasingly complex and often confusing world, they find it even more difficult to plan. In this practical and comprehensive guide Gill Ringland shows how scenario thinking can help organizations think about uncertainty in a structured way and manage their own future.

In use at Royal/Dutch Shell since the late 1960s, scenario thinking is now widely accepted as a valuable method for informing decisions. This book focuses on the use of scenarios in business, as part of a strategic management toolkit. Drawing on a wealth of global examples, Scenarios in Business will provide managers at all levels with the knowledge, best practice guidelines and a practical set of tools to bring scenarios into their own organization.

It is worth remembering that everything possible today was at one time impossible. It therefore follows that everything impossible today may at sometime in the future be possible. But, most importantly, in the end the future is not something that happens to us. The future is the sum of what we all do. This book is for anyone who realizes that the future will no longer replicate the past, but is still struggling to come to terms with, and cope with, the uncertainties of the future.

Contents

• Part I: Evolution in the Use of Scenarios
• • Summary
  • Vision 2000
  • A Scenario Project to re-orient ICL's portfolio
  • From data to scenarios
  • Information markets
  • Use in corporate planning
  • Using scenarios in teams
  • Adopting existing scenarios
  • Lessons Learnt
• Part II: Scenario Thinking
• • Summary
  • Strategy & Scenarios.
  • Where are we now?
  • Forecasts
  • Pitfalls & Pratfalls
  • Evolutionary models for cultural change
  • Where next?
  • Conclusions
• Part III: Making scenarios work
• • Summary
  • The Environment for Scenario Thinking
  • The Stages of a Project
  • Getting started
  • Deciding the question
  • Interviews and workshops
  • Scenario creation
  • Scenarios to plans
  • Linking Scenarios into the Organisation
  • Main points
• Part IV: Case Studies
• • Summary
  • A Study in Turkey
  • A New Energy Environment
  • New Car Distribution
  • Reframing Industry Boundaries
  • Software for Collaborative Working
  • Foresight into Insight
  • Healthcare 2010
  • A Trading Group
  • Lessons Learnt and Conclusions