SCENARIO
PLANNING

ENGAGING WITH
UNCERTAINTIES

The internationalization of finance and markets, among other elements, has transformed the world economy. Individuals, households, firms, governments, and central banks, operate in an integrated universe – the global market – and are confronted with a much more complex competitive landscape. High volatility causes forecasts to hardly predict the future, and typical planning cycles to be somewhat unreliable. More broadly, in our global market, traditional strategy tools fail to successfully address volatility, do not adequately consider the landscape complexity, and hardly account for different views and perspectives.
However, while the world dynamics change, our clients continue to ask the same questions: (a) which market they should approach next, and why: (b) how they should adapt their products or services before entering a specific market; (c) how their business can take advantage of high-growth and/or high-risk geographical areas; (d) how the commodity market will look in the near future, and how a specific change will affect their market share and profitability; (e) how exchange rates will change, and how they can hedge against fluctuation risks; (f) how will the demand for their products and services will change in the short, mid and long run: (g) how will regulations change in their home and target markets; and (h) what happens to the their overseas investments if there’s a change in the local, state or central government.

DESIGNING PLAUSIBLE FUTURES

Scenario planning, in tandem with other strategy tools, overcome the shortfalls of traditional planning techniques. In fact, we work with our clients to explore and prepare for alternative futures, some of which may be considered simply unthinkable. We work with our clients so they are prepared to handle the unexpected.
Our scenario planning experts prepare clear, plausible, alternative futures in a short amount of time. Our turn-around time ranges between 3 to 12 weeks, while traditional scenario planning firms can take anywhere between 5 to 12 months. The difference is our approach. Innovative and multi-disciplinary. We understand that our clients need to move fast with agile, immediately implementable plans, and don’t have the luxury to look at a 20 years’ time horizon. We bring plausible futures to them with a time horizon of 5 years or less.
Our approach is not merely qualitative; instead, it also includes extensive quantitative analysis. We believe in integrated strategy as opposed to one methodology that, supposedly, fits all. The scenarios we produce: (i) are industry specific; (ii) address our clients’ strategic and operational challenges; (iii) are completed within a few weeks as opposed to months; (iv) are simple yet sophisticated, and propose non-trivial futures; (v) induce our clients to think out of the box, the unthinkable indeed; and (vi) are designed to trigger immediately implementable adjustments to our clients’ business.
We bring quantitative and qualitative analysis together. We consider both the market and non-market strategy systems. We deliver the CGA scenario approach. We deliver results.