Futures study (South America)

Strategy

Challenge

Each and every day, our client faces the potential impacts of changing market conditions, environmental regulations, stakeholder demands, new technology requirements and access to capital. All of these issues were challenging its ability to remain an attractive enterprise. Consequently, the leadership team was running a workshop to frame the future ‘opportunity’ and devise various high potential strategic scenarios to drive a futures study.

Scope

• Effectively plan this critical and complex activity, involving subject matter experts from around the world.
• Construct a comprehensive picture of the future opportunity.
• Create a fun and engaging environment built on trust, openness and respect.
• Bring everyone up to speed and onto the same page, including over 200 lessons learnt to drive the futures study.
• Ensure alignment and agreement on 15 strategic scenarios to be evaluated as part of the futures study.
• Build a comparative value, risk and effort profile to guide the futures study.
• Establish a communications plan to engage people outside the room in the future of the business.

Outcomes

• The opportunity framing process harnessed the creative knowledge of 35 people to explore, discuss and identify more than 150 decisions to drive the futures study — of which 25 were strategic.
• The team successfully brainstormed more than 170 alternatives to address the strategic decisions and could then craft in detail some 15 high potential strategic scenarios for careful evaluation during the futures study.
• With a clear and agreed description of the future opportunity, the team could effectively assess the strategic scenarios and identify the right pathway to value. They would then be well positioned to exploit the market and in turn realise benefits for the shareholders, employees and communities involved in their operations and projects.