Foresight driven business concepts
Challenge
A Corporate strategy and Advanced design team of a conglomerate with multiple business units wanted to identify new business growth opportunities inspired by emerging consumer lifestyles. One challenge was the breadth of scope of the company, from finance to fashion. Another challenge was that the opportunities were not to fall within the clear remit of an existing business unit, but should leverage the groups’ capabilities. Finally, the goal was to develop tangible propositions that would gain funding for further development by the internal strategy team.
Approach
We began with a comprehensive foresight scan, focusing on potential disruptions driven by emergent lifestyles. These trends inspired use case hypotheses in areas such as construction, healthcare, insurance, retail and office furniture. Early ideas were quickly filtered by testing them with domain experts. We then developed the selected concepts around new use cases. Finally, high-level business propositions were built, including revenue sources, potential partners, and key features and benefits.
Impact
- Our approach to a high-level challenge was internalised by the strategy team
- Three out of the five concepts gained funding for further development
- One was launched as a test, and then rolled out globally