A favorite at meetings, events and conferences, you may ask: Why do future trends experts get booked so often as keynote speakers for business gatherings and trade shows? It helps to think about the type of work thought leaders here engage in:
- Strategic foresight – To identify emerging trends, opportunities and potential disruptions 5-10 years out that will impact their industry. Work by future trends experts helps leadership make more informed strategic plans.
- Competitive intelligence – To gain insight into how competitors, startups and other innovators may evolve in the future. Serves to identify threats and partnership opportunities early.
- Consumer insights – To research and forecast as future trends experts how customer priorities, values and behaviors may change over time. It empowers companies to meet future consumer demands.
- Mitigate risk – To reveal risks related to technology changes, regulations, geopolitics, climate and other factors that may arise. Firms can develop contingency plans.
- Spark innovation – Trend analysis by future trends experts uncovers white space for new products, services and business models tailored to tomorrow’s markets.
- Futureproof operations – To determine how mega-trends like automation, new technologies, the circular economy etc. will impact internal operations down the road.
- Scenario planning – Construct potential scenarios incorporating key driving forces and uncertainties. Top future trends experts prepare companies for multiple futures.
- Challenge assumptions – Experts question ingrained corporate assumptions and shift mindsets to be future-oriented. Broadens perspectives.
- Define the vision – Trend insights help articulate an inspiring and achievable vision for the company’s future direction.
Essentially, leveraging outside future trends experts’ celebrated expertise helps companies navigate uncertainty and stay competitively positioned for the years ahead. To wit, thought leaders are frequently tapped to serve as keynote speakers at internal conferences and client events year in and year out. And we can’t argue with that!