BUSINESS STRATEGISTS VS. FUTURISTS: ARE THEY ONE AND THE SAME?

Business strategist speakers tell us they’re often confused with futurist keynote and virtual speaking pros. That’s understandable – your average future trends expert can certainly play a role in helping shape business strategy, but they are not necessarily prone to performing the same type of work as members of the former profession. Being both Business strategist speakers and practicing futurists,  we thought we might elaborate on the way that some futurists (who may also be in the practice of corporate strategy on top of their work here) engage with business strategy…

• Long-term perspective – Many futurists specialize in looking 5-30 years out to identify emerging trends, discontinuities, and future scenarios that may impact an industry – it helps provide a framework for more far-sighted business strategy.
• Trend analysis – Myriad active futurists research and forecast upcoming shifts in demographics, technology, politics, environment, and society. Trend intelligence informs business strategy by identifying threats and opportunities.
• Visioning – Futurists, like some business strategist speakers, use creative visioning techniques to develop aspirational visions for a company’s future purpose, values, and offerings which gives business strategy a directional focus.
• Scenario planning – Thought leaders also often construct scenario narratives of different plausible futures that the company may face. Strategists can then stress test strategy options under these scenarios.
• Anticipatory thinking – Future trends experts foster proactive, anticipatory thinking in strategy development vs. reactive thinking that engenders flexibility and foresight.
• Consumer foresight – On top of this, many futurists analyze future consumer needs, behaviors, and values… and their shapes strategic marketing, product development, and service design.
• Workforce forecasting – Some industry pros also project future skills, job automation impacts, and workforce trends – data guides strategic workforce planning and capability development.

The future orientation futurists provide is invaluable, but note that business strategists also focus on organizational capabilities, competitive dynamics, operational execution, and financial performance, among other topics. Futurists are often partners to the strategy team, not a replacement for business strategists – though, of course, you’ll find a number of individuals whose work spans both disciplines and backgrounds.