Exercise/Case: What Does the Future Look Like?

A critical ingredient to studying the general business environment is identifying opportunities and threats. An opportunity is a condition in the environment that, if exploited, helps a company achieve strategic competitiveness. In order to identify opportunities, one must be aware of current and future trends affecting the world around us.

Thomas Frey, senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute, says that the chaotic nature of interconnecting trends and the vast array of possibilities that arise from them is somewhat akin to watching a spinning compass needle. From the way we use phones and e-mail, or recruit new workers to organizations, the climate for business is changing and shifting dramatically and at rapidly increasing rates. Sorting out these changes and making sense of them provides the basis for opportunity decision making. Which ones will dominate and which will fade? Understanding this is crucial for business success.

Your challenge is to identify a trend, technology, entertainment, or design that is likely to alter the way in which business is conducted in the future. Once you have identified your topic, write a position paper that covers the following points:

1. In your own words, which of the seven segments of the general environment will this affect? Describe the impact. (Identify three segments for maximum credit, provide three full pages of discussion (minimum), begin a new page for this section.)

The segments are: Political/Legal, Demographic, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental/Physical, and Global.z

2. In your own words, list some business opportunities that will come from this. (Identify two business opportunities for maximum credit, provide one full page of discussion (minimum), begin a new page for this section.)

3. In your own words, identify some existing organizations that stand to benefit. (Identify two existing organizations for maximum credit, provide one full page of discussion (minimum), begin a new page for this section.)

4. In your own words, what, if any, are the ethical implications? (Identify three ethical implications for maximum credit, provide three full pages of discussion (minimum), begin a new page for this section).