Corporate foresight

Corporate foresight is an ability that includes any structural or cultural element that enables the company to detect discontinuous change early, interpret the consequences for the company, and formulate effective responses to ensure the long-term survival and success of the company.

There are three major challenges that make it so difficult for organizations to respond to external change:

In addition to the need to overcome the barriers to future orientation a need to build corporate foresight abilities might also come from:

To operationalize the need for "peripheral vision", a concept closely linked to corporate foresight George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker developed a questionnaire with 24 questions.

Based on case study research in 20 multinational companies René Rohrbeck proposes a "Maturity Model for the Future Orientation of a Firm". Its five dimensions are:

To operationalize his model Rohrbeck used 20 elements which have four maturity levels each. These maturity levels are defined and described qualitatively, i.e. by short descriptions that are either true or not true for a given organization.

Through an empirical investigation Rohrbeck identified three roles that corporate foresight can play to enhance the innovation management of a firm:

The study also showed that only a small number of firms have implemented the third role. In the majority of firms the aims of an innovation development project that have been defined are not challenged after the initial decision has been taken. This carries the risk that changing environmental conditions threaten the success of the innovation in development.

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