Technology foresight isn’t always the first thing organisations focus on. Instead, their business strategy addresses building capabilities, testing competitor responses, and finding new vendors for various technological needs.

As a result, organisations may have low risk tolerance and only plan ahead for a few quarters. While this may provide small incremental wins, it does necessarily ensure long-term success.

Today’s Chief Strategy Officer needs to approach business strategy over the long-term point. This can help them address key themes, continually engage stakeholders, and ensure business vitality into the future.

What is Technology Foresight?

Technology foresight looks at a horizon of between 20 and 30 years. It examines potential technologies in all stages of maturity that can provide long-term benefit within a particular industry or sector. It focuses on overall advantages, rather than the individual company alone.

How Can Technology Foresight Shape Business Strategy?

Technology foresight can address current unmet needs and long-term themes. When executed correctly, it can prevent fundamental organisational mistakes such as investing in innovations even when the company does not know whether they will deliver value.

Instead of jumping on the technology bandwagon, a technology foresight program highlights where to focus and what to avoid. Companies narrow their set of promising technology options to ensure they align with their wider goals. Potential choices also build on existing strengths.

Two of the greatest advantages of technology foresight is early adopter advantage and the ability to scale to overcome future global challenges. These are key to any successful business strategy.

How Can Organisations Plan for Their Technological Future?

Successful technology foresight must align with a company’s current strengths and needs. The process needs to be pragmatic to create success. The following steps can make the process proceed smoothly:

• Analyse organizational expectations, timelines, and available resources
• Shortlist potential innovations based on market need and level of R&D investment required
• Collect quantitative and quantitative data and unbiased advice to further reduce choices
• Review trends & leading & lagging indicators – news, publications written, investments in specific innovations, and the amount of interest in the startup community can all indicate present and future potential
• Drill down into similar technologies – a granular comparison of technology hierarchies can provide insights on best choices
• Consider industry-specific issues – does the technology offer the protections the organization needs regarding privacy, patents, and intellectual capital?

A commitment to an ongoing innovation process is also crucial. Otherwise, stakeholders will not remain invested in innovation and the organization will not anticipate, act on, or benefit from changes in the market.

Partnering to Create Technology Foresight

Organisations must establish an innovation culture that provides continual attention to promising technologies. Regrettably, that is often difficult in-house due to limited talent and resources.

Fortunately, it is possible to find innovations with great potential, quickly and effectively, by partnering with an innovation expert. A Chief Strategy Officer can leverage the resources of this third-party to achieve their goals.

EarlyBirds makes it easy to do this and each of their methods offer the following benefits:

• Increased productivity
• Improved operational efficiency
• Enhanced competitiveness
• Connections to the best Subject Matter Experts and innovators available
• Simplified process

EarlyBirds Skill Identification Program

Our skill identification program offers potential solutions to organisation to find and retain the best in the current talent pool.

The program is overseen by veterans in the industry with a high level of credibility and expertise that benefits all parties. It also provides actionable data-driven recommendations fuelled by cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics.

EarlyBirds Open Innovation Ecosystem

Our award-winning Open Innovation Ecosystem allows both innovation and strategic thinking in all areas of a business, whatever the technical or business challenge or potential opportunity your organisation wants to explore.

With a data pool of over 5.0 million global innovations across many industries, it is possible that solutions already exist that address your organisation’s challenges. Alternatively, your organisation can list your challenges and request solutions from innovators.

EarlyBirds Ecosystem Maps

EarlyBirds’ Ecosystem Maps offer strategic value for decision-making. They empower CSOs, because they provide a full picture of the possible technological advancements in specific domains. This allows them to make informed, forward-thinking decisions.

Each Ecosystem Map contains startups, scaleups, and mature companies involved in specific themes and sub-themes so organisations can plot a path towards innovation. The map also tracks numerous daily and historical news and media articles from across the world.

EarlyBirds Explorer Program

The Explorer Program is tailored towards those who need innovation as a service to supplement existing innovation programs, or to conduct innovation projects when required. It is designed to speed up the process of technological innovation for the organisation as a service.

The Explorer Program includes several features including quarterly and monthly innovation days; regular webinars to help stimulate innovation in the organisation; a focus on types of innovations; a platform enterprise license; and a nominated SME for the business.

EarlyBirds Challenger Program

The Challenger Program focuses on a single organisational or technical challenge. It looks for the most relevant innovators that meet your organisational, technical, and risk requirements.

The program is run by an EarlyBirds’ Subject Matter Expert who identifies your key issues. The SME then searches the data pool to identify and curate options for further evaluation. The most suitable option is chosen and the SME drafts a roadmap of next steps, POC, trial, or implementation.

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The best Chief Strategy Officers always need the best technologies to successfully shape their business strategies. If your organisation needs to find innovations with great potential, please sign up as an Early Adopter. Alternatively, please request a consultation for a more personalized approach.

Our experience extends to the Food Industry, Retail, Healthcare, Operations & Maintenance, Manufacturing, Finance & Insurance, Energy, Education, Cybersecurity, Sovereign Nations, the Public Sector, and many other areas. We can help you create technology foresight that aligns with organisational needs and goals.

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