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Spotting Trends Taking Advantage of Change and Converting Risks into Opportunities |
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By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH, 1000ventures.com
"The future belong to those who see it first, or most clearly." – John Kay
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Be the First While you cannot predict the future, you can get a handle on trends, which is a way to take advantage of change and convert risks into opportunities. The ability to spot trends before others is vital if you want to think faster and thus be ahead of your competition. "Predicting the Future" There is a big difference between "predicting the future" and "taking an chance" on the future. "No one can predict the future with any degree of certainty; nor should marketing plans try. But the closer you can get to the consumer, the more likely you are to succeed."3
SWOT Analysis:
Questions To Answer
What trends do you see in your
industry?
What trends do you foresee?...
More Outside-In Company Taping your resources of analytical, systemic and outside-the-box thinking, understand what's going in the real world – look at your business from outside in and ask these searching questions relentlessly6:
Case in Point Bratz Dolls The developers of the Bratz dolls identified a trend among youngsters – admiring cool looking people. They created dolls that look very different from the classic Barbie dolls. The result was a great success.
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Bibliography:
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"It's Not the Big that Eat the Small... It's the Fast that Eat the Slow", Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton, 2000
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"Strategy and the Delusion of Grand Designs", John Kay, 2003
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"The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing in Asia", Al Ries, Jack Trout and Paul Temporal, 2003.
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"The Art of Innovation", Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman, 2001
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"Every Business is a Growth Business", Ram Charan and Noel. M. Tichy, 1998
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"Kaizen - The Key to Japanese Competitive Success", by Masaaki Imai, 1991
