Business Planning in Turbulent Times : New Methods for Applying Scenarios

The world is an increasingly turbulent and complex environment, awash with tipping points and knock-on effects ranging from the impact of warfare in the Middle East on energy futures, investment and global currencies to the vast and unpredictable impacts of climate change.

This book is for business and organizational leaders who feel the ever increasing turbulence of the environment and are interested in thinking through how to deal with related complexity and uncertainty. The authors explain in clear language how future orientation, and specifically modern scenario techniques, help to address increasing risk and lead to more confident and robust decisions. They draw on examples from a wide variety of settings and circumstances including the large corporations, inter-governmental organizations like the World Bank, small firms, municipalities and other communities.

Readers will be inspired to try out scenario approaches themselves to address the turbulence that affects them and others with whom they work, live and do business. A key feature of the book is the exchange of insights across the academic-practitioner divide. What has previously remained jargon only accessible to the highest level of corporate and government futures planners here becomes comprehensible to a wider business and practitioner community.

Rafael Ramírez is Professor of Management, HEC-Paris, Fellow in Strategic Management at Templeton College and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and was visiting Professor of Scenarios and Corporate Strategy at Shell International from 2000 to 2003.

John W. Selsky is Division Director and Associate Professor of Management, College of Business, University of South Florida, Lakeland.

Kees van der Heijden is Associate Fellow of Templeton College, University of Oxford, Professor Emeritus at Strathclyde Business School and was previously Head of Scenario Planning, Shell International.