The National Industries Corporation (NIC) set about to visualize the future of the parent nation that established it (Wade, 2012); the NIC sought to accomplish this task by adopting a scenario planning approach to visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it – scenario planning was then used in crafting a long-term strategic plan. The main anticipation and plans that the NIC had for the future of its parent nation are (1) Planning investment in local manufacturing in the nation and (2) Envisaging that the nation would be recognized as a leader in innovation.
The parent nation that established the NIC is an archipelago, which comprises of dozens of islands that linearly span 50 miles, is one of the smallest nations on earth (in terms of both land area and population), is one of the lowest nations on earth (being only 1.5 meters above sea level) and, therefore, faces the gloomy prospect of being submerged by the rising sea/ocean levels occasioned by climate change and its economy is largely dependent on a couple of industries, namely: Tourism and tuna fishing.
The parent nation that established the NIC tasked the NIC with the responsibility of helping the nation attain higher living standards and achieve development. The NIC set out to accomplish its assigned tasks by starting with engaging the service of a consulting firm to help it devise a strategic plan. In line with the consulting advice furnished by the recruited consulting firm, the NIC identified how scenario planning could be applied, enumerated the forces/factors that it envisaged would drive/impact/shape the nation’s economy in the next decade – forces/factors here are defined to be events/phenomena, activities, scenarios, etc. – and followed the typical procedure and method of a scenario planning exercise (Figure 1 below illustrates the steps involved in a typical scenario planning exercise/procedure).
In adopting a scenario planning approach to visualizing the future, the NIC created groups of think tanks, which they designated clusters; each cluster represented an area of the socio-politico-economic terrain/arena in the nation for which a scenario would be created and studied. The following clusters were formed:
(1.) Tourism Export Earnings.
(2.) Fishing Export Earnings.
(3.) Structural or environmental forces/factors impacting the nation’s business climate, including aviation, shipping, real estate development, domestic business environment, political development and prospects of the nation being a global technology center.
(4.) Quality of life issues, such as food and fuel availability.
(5.) The nation’s overall self-sufficiency.
(6.) Climate change.
By permuting four variables – including high GDP growth, low GDP growth, high balance of trade and low balance of trade – two at a time, the NIC created four scenarios, which it envisages will possibly occur in the future. The four scenarios created are as follows: Global winner (high GDP growth and high balance of trade), global trader (high GDP growth and low balance of trade), regional player (high balance of trade and low GDP growth) and safe refuge (low GDP growth and low balance of trade). Each of the four scenarios is analyzed in terms of the various foregoing clusters, which the NIC created for use with the scenario planning exercise – this means that, for each different scenario, there will a different set of outcomes for each cluster.
As with a typical scenario planning exercise, the foregoing scenarios, which the NIC envisages, will provide a basis or source of input to its activity of crafting a long-term strategic plan (which strategic plan it will use alongside visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it); the strategy that the NIC crafts will be adequately flexible so that the nation can handle any of the possible envisaged, anticipated scenarios – indeed, this flexibility of the crafted strategy would enable the nation to handle, not only any of the anticipated scenarios that eventually plays out, but also other possible scenarios that are not among the four ones envisaged and anticipated, which may also play out. Furthermore, all the four scenarios envisaged and anticipated are also those that are realistic, feasible to occur.
Having analyzed, in this blog, how a corporation employed scenario planning to visualize the future of as well as develop a long-term strategic plan for the parent nation that established it, a very useful and germane question to ask is whether or not anything useful came out of this scenario planning exercise. According to Wade (2012), the answer to the foregoing question is yes, benefits were obtained from applying scenario planning in this way. These benefits include identifying the imminent collapse of the tourism industry (which collapse was identified even before management or government was able to envisage it), one of the business opportunities that were identified in the scenarios was actualized during the next year, the nation that established the NIC raised adequate financial bases so that it would be ready when any of the anticipated scenarios occurred and the consulting firm contracted to assist the NIC with visualizing the future of the nation was able to extract an innovative marketing idea, which exploited a feature with which the nation is naturally endowed.
A couple of forces that affected the success of the NIC’s task of visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it include the following:
(1.) The NIC’s contracting out at least part of the consulting work to a third party (i.e., the firm that it recruited to assist it with accomplishing this task) – Wade (2012) says that it was this firm that recommended that the NIC adopt a scenario planning approach to visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it; the firm advised that the output of this scenario planning exercise would also be used in devising a strategic plan. According to Wade (2012), the very first task that the firm accomplished was to furnish the NIC the aforementioned advice.
(2.) Both the NIC and the nation that established it were (A) Willing to embrace the proactive, progressive advice for them to adopt and employ/apply scenario planning and (B) Employed/applied the scenario planning approach dutifully, meticulously and conscientiously – these achievements resulted in very beneficial outcomes for the NIC and the nation that established it.
References
Subregional Planning. Planning tools: Scenario Planning. Retrieved from http://subregional.h-gac.com/toolbox/Community_Planning/Scenario_Planning_Final.html
Wade, W. (2012). Scenario planning: A field guide to the future. New Jersey. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The parent nation that established the NIC is an archipelago, which comprises of dozens of islands that linearly span 50 miles, is one of the smallest nations on earth (in terms of both land area and population), is one of the lowest nations on earth (being only 1.5 meters above sea level) and, therefore, faces the gloomy prospect of being submerged by the rising sea/ocean levels occasioned by climate change and its economy is largely dependent on a couple of industries, namely: Tourism and tuna fishing.
The parent nation that established the NIC tasked the NIC with the responsibility of helping the nation attain higher living standards and achieve development. The NIC set out to accomplish its assigned tasks by starting with engaging the service of a consulting firm to help it devise a strategic plan. In line with the consulting advice furnished by the recruited consulting firm, the NIC identified how scenario planning could be applied, enumerated the forces/factors that it envisaged would drive/impact/shape the nation’s economy in the next decade – forces/factors here are defined to be events/phenomena, activities, scenarios, etc. – and followed the typical procedure and method of a scenario planning exercise (Figure 1 below illustrates the steps involved in a typical scenario planning exercise/procedure).
Source: Subregional Planning
Figure 1: Steps in a typical Scenario Planning Procedure/Exercise
(1.) Tourism Export Earnings.
(2.) Fishing Export Earnings.
(3.) Structural or environmental forces/factors impacting the nation’s business climate, including aviation, shipping, real estate development, domestic business environment, political development and prospects of the nation being a global technology center.
(4.) Quality of life issues, such as food and fuel availability.
(5.) The nation’s overall self-sufficiency.
(6.) Climate change.
By permuting four variables – including high GDP growth, low GDP growth, high balance of trade and low balance of trade – two at a time, the NIC created four scenarios, which it envisages will possibly occur in the future. The four scenarios created are as follows: Global winner (high GDP growth and high balance of trade), global trader (high GDP growth and low balance of trade), regional player (high balance of trade and low GDP growth) and safe refuge (low GDP growth and low balance of trade). Each of the four scenarios is analyzed in terms of the various foregoing clusters, which the NIC created for use with the scenario planning exercise – this means that, for each different scenario, there will a different set of outcomes for each cluster.
As with a typical scenario planning exercise, the foregoing scenarios, which the NIC envisages, will provide a basis or source of input to its activity of crafting a long-term strategic plan (which strategic plan it will use alongside visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it); the strategy that the NIC crafts will be adequately flexible so that the nation can handle any of the possible envisaged, anticipated scenarios – indeed, this flexibility of the crafted strategy would enable the nation to handle, not only any of the anticipated scenarios that eventually plays out, but also other possible scenarios that are not among the four ones envisaged and anticipated, which may also play out. Furthermore, all the four scenarios envisaged and anticipated are also those that are realistic, feasible to occur.
Having analyzed, in this blog, how a corporation employed scenario planning to visualize the future of as well as develop a long-term strategic plan for the parent nation that established it, a very useful and germane question to ask is whether or not anything useful came out of this scenario planning exercise. According to Wade (2012), the answer to the foregoing question is yes, benefits were obtained from applying scenario planning in this way. These benefits include identifying the imminent collapse of the tourism industry (which collapse was identified even before management or government was able to envisage it), one of the business opportunities that were identified in the scenarios was actualized during the next year, the nation that established the NIC raised adequate financial bases so that it would be ready when any of the anticipated scenarios occurred and the consulting firm contracted to assist the NIC with visualizing the future of the nation was able to extract an innovative marketing idea, which exploited a feature with which the nation is naturally endowed.
A couple of forces that affected the success of the NIC’s task of visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it include the following:
(1.) The NIC’s contracting out at least part of the consulting work to a third party (i.e., the firm that it recruited to assist it with accomplishing this task) – Wade (2012) says that it was this firm that recommended that the NIC adopt a scenario planning approach to visualizing the future of the parent nation that established it; the firm advised that the output of this scenario planning exercise would also be used in devising a strategic plan. According to Wade (2012), the very first task that the firm accomplished was to furnish the NIC the aforementioned advice.
(2.) Both the NIC and the nation that established it were (A) Willing to embrace the proactive, progressive advice for them to adopt and employ/apply scenario planning and (B) Employed/applied the scenario planning approach dutifully, meticulously and conscientiously – these achievements resulted in very beneficial outcomes for the NIC and the nation that established it.
References
Subregional Planning. Planning tools: Scenario Planning. Retrieved from http://subregional.h-gac.com/toolbox/Community_Planning/Scenario_Planning_Final.html
Wade, W. (2012). Scenario planning: A field guide to the future. New Jersey. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment