When concerns are raised that Accipiter's scenarios might be wrong or perhaps placing too much emphasis on the wrong market, Marlow must step in to provide encouragement. The point of scenarios isn’t necessarily to be able to predict the actual future, but to identify discontinuities and anticipate them, and bring new needs or opportunities to light.
In the age of permanent uncertainty there is a resurgent interest in scenario planning. Executives that have witnessed high profile decline of strong companies know that past success is no guaranteed guide to the future. Kevin McDermott & Peter Kennedy argue that scenario planning can be lifted out of its conventional uses in strategy development and risk management and used instead to avoid “opportunity blindness”.
Does your company currently consider alternative future states which anticipate your competitors' likely new product introductions? Or, new competitors, not yet known in the market? If not, it should.
