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Why Futuribles International? |
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PowerPoint presentation of Futuribles International |
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We live in a turbulent world plagued by uncertainty, overwhelmed by information, both reliable and unreliable, which often favors the sensational over the essential—the essential that is vital to understand in order to move forward. We are thus faced with a major challenge: to demonstrate insight and vigilance, and to try to understand what could happen (the possible futures) in order to answer the question: “what can we expect to achieve, when, why (vision) and how (policy and strategy)?”
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Founded in 1960, Futuribles International carries out strategic intelligence and foresight activities to aid in the decision and construction of desirable futures.
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Its objectives are:
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To contribute to a better understanding of the dynamic of the contemporary world and its possible futures in the medium and long-term, notably due to a mutualized early warning system devoted to identification of potential changes in the strategic environment of businesses and organizations: the Lookout System. It provides constant indications of heavy trends (megatrends) and emergent trends (weak signals) in the strategic environment.
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To explore what could happen, the possible futures, in considering major shaping factors, trends, and discontinuities, to reveal veritable future challenges.
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To examine, by confronting challenges, the policies and strategies that may be adopted.
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To promote foresight and prospective as instruments to aid decision and strategy. |
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The Lookout System (système Vigie) |
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WHY AN EARLY WARNING SYSTEM?
There are very few businesses or organizations that can, on their own account—and while focusing on understanding the developments within their particular field—carry out the work necessary to understand their external environment. It is for this reason that Futuribles International developed a mutualized early warning system for tracking possible changes and discontinuities in the strategic environment of businesses and organizations that may have a specific impact on their particular strategic concerns. |
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OBJECTIVES OF THE LOOKOUT SYSTEM
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To analyze changes in the exterior environment of businesses and organizations by sharing the costs and benefits of such a process.
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To enrich simple observations of trends with in-depth analyses, thanks to the experience and competences of the Futuribles group which calls upon its permanent team and its international network of experts from various disciplines and countries.
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To guide participating organizations in interpreting the data collected by the Lookout System according to procedures developed by the Futuribles group, so that they may better understand its significance and implications.
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With this plan, to promote an anticipation of external developments for its partners, which could identify challenges for their strategic decisions. |
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SOME CURRENT AREAS OF MONITORING
— Global geopolitics
— Geo-economics and finances
— Resources, energy, environment
— Science, techniques, society
— Institutions, public policy, governance
— Employment, labor, qualifications
— Socio-demographic and social protection dynamics
— Values, ways of life, and consumption
— Strategy and management of organizations |
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PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
• A round-the-clock monitoring system, Vigie Info, is continually updated by the Futuribles International team, multidisciplinary experts around the world, and the partners of the monitoring system themselves. It allows for the analysis of “seed” ideas and events capable of changing the external environment of participating institutions.
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Early warning briefs (approximately 30 per year), are 4-6 page documents addressing heavy trends and transitory and breakdown factors pertaining to developments in the strategic environments of businesses and organizations.
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Outlook reports (4 per year) address important issues requiring more detailed investigation.
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Lectures by experts go into further detail about aspects of problems particularly important to partners.
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Foresight documentation is composed of analyses of selected future studies works accomplished by the Futuribles team and several dozen futures studies centers (think tanks) on five continents.
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Octave, a bibliographical database, provides an international census of foresight studies (approximately 5,000 documents inventoried)
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The “Bibliographie prospective”, a monthly electronic bibliographical bulletin, debriefs the news from recent published studies in a selective and analytical manner.
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An annual report outlines, in an user-friendly format reproducible for our partner institutions, a panorama of heavy and emergent trends in the evolution of the strategic environment of businesses and organizations on the horizon for the next 5, 10, and 20 years.
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The knowledge base brings together these different services and provides access to source documents for reinforcement of analyses. This data is organized and user-friendly.
• Periodic working groups provide a critical, regular assessment of the pertinence of analyzed trends and transitory factors, and define major orientations of the future studies field.
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