How do large companies scout the trends and technologies that will be most relevant to their future success? And even more importantly, how do they introduce those concepts to their colleagues throughout the organization, and get initial experiments and pilot tests going?
Our latest in-depth research report addresses those two questions. It collects advice from more than 25 innovation, R&D, corporate development, and strategy executives, and data from 140 others.
It defines five key activities involved in doing scouting successfully:
- Aligning with corporate strategy and setting boundaries
- Operating the radar
- Communicating what you see to the rest of the organization
- Running tests and experiments
- Helping the business deploy and scale the experiments that work.
We explore how companies like Kellogg Co., BASF, Nokia, Hospital Corp. of America, Xerox, IBM, GM, Goodyear, Autodesk, Sherwin-Williams, Siemens, Thomson Reuters, and others conduct trend and tech scouting.
The report also includes a worksheet focused on the five key activities above, to help you think through some of the key questions, participants, risks, and indicators of success when you are setting up or seeking to improve a scouting operation.
The 50-page PDF includes survey data on questions like:
- What individuals or groups in the company are responsible for scouting trends and emerging tech?
- Are there ways for others to access the results of scouting activity? What tools?
- Can others outside the official scouting group contribute what they’re seeing? How?
- What are the biggest challenges you’ve encountered related to scouting?
- Are there consultancies or software products you rely on as part your scouting work?
- How well does your company integrate the results of scouting work into its business?
- What lessons or recommendations would you share with others about doing scouting well?
It also includes a downloadable worksheet designed to help you think through some of the key questions, participants, risks, and indicators of success when you are setting up or seeking to improve a scouting operation.
Sample Data
Table of Contents
Guidance
Introduction 4
Aligning With Strategy 7
Operating the Radar 9
Communicating to the Rest of the Organization 13
Running Tests and Experiments 14
Helping the Business Take Action 17
Survey Results
Who Scouts Trends? 20
Who Scouts Tech? 21
Access to Data 22
Ways to Contribute Observations 24
How Well Are We Doing? 25
Trend Scouting Help 26
Tech Scouting Help 27
Scouting Challenges28
Advice from Respondents 30
Scouting Worksheet 32
Case Studies
Kellogg Company 36
Goodyear 39
Nokia 42
General Motors 44
Siemens 46
Autodesk 48
Lululemon 50
Sherwin-Williams 52
Additional Resources 54
