In an increasingly competitive market dominated and shaped by changing environments and trends, knowing what the future holds would come very handy. Of course, future telling is as hard in banking as it is in any other industry and aspect of life. However, despite the apparent difficulties, there are some things one can do to prepare for the future, some of which we’ll talk about in our new interview.

Axel Liebetrau, consultant affiliated with the German ‘Zukunftsinstitut’, shares with us his views and experiences on corporate foresight and future management. While the future obviously cannot be predicted, the future knowledge available to the bank can, as can be assumptions the bank makes regarding the future. In particular, pure trend research needs to be transformed into meaningful implications for the bank, regarding topics such as customers, markets, products, workforce or technology.

There are a number of tools and methodologies available to support corporate foresight, however, implementing corporate foresight is not easy. It is a mid- to long-term management task affecting major aspects of the bank. An innovation culture and an open, lateral approach to thinking are key to the implementation, as is the integration from outside-the-industry views and approaches to effectively identify future opportunities and threats. In addition, fostering corporate foresight also essentially means that actions contributing to innovation and corporate foresight need to be remunerated and thus - if ever possible - to be measured.

To sum it up, corporate foresight will not come for free and transforming the corporation into fertile ground for corporate foresight and innovation will take a while. However, we’re convinced that mastering corporate foresight will evolve into an even more important strategic differentiator than it is today, thus making the effort worthwhile.

Michael Stoeckli / Bernet & Partner

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