In a recent article Dana Mietzner reports on practices of strategic foresight in firms in the biotechnology industry. She proposes a classification of strategic foresight approaches into five groups:
- Science-driven: building on links to universities and scientific research organizations
- Network-oriented: encouraging informal boundary spanning activities of their employees and interpretation and decision making through strategy meetings
- Market-driven: screening of competitors and customers with often formalized processes and IT-systems
- Gatekeeper: working through boundary-spanning employees who collect data through formal and informal networks and disseminate information personally
- Controlling-based: focused on risk identification and assessment with financial diagnosis tools.
In the figure below it can be seen that the majority of firms are using either a formal monitoring approach (market-driven) or have build strong networks to spot changes in their environment.
I find that very interesting, because this shows also that these biotech companies have grown beyond the stage in which they believe that staying close to university (science-driven approach) will suffice to succeed in the future. It shows also that these companies take the need for foresight seriously. This might also partly be a result from the high level of competition in the biotech industry.
Her article is also interesting because she identifies multiple reasons for reluctance to implement strategic foresight systems:
- Insufficient strategic management processes that are to weak as to cope with inflow of future insights
- Excessive focus on short-term planning (the classic)
- Insufficient resources
- No interest in contextual factors
Full reference: Mietzner, D. and G. Reger (2009) Practices of Strategic Foresight in Biotech Companies, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 13(2), p. 273-294. (free download version)