Imagining your businesses future – Visionary concepts
What is your vision of the future and the products and services your company will provide?
Your future is on its way, whether you like it or not, but having a vision can give you some control.
In earlier videos we built future scenarios, identifying the opportunities and challenges. Then, we used brainwriting to come up with ideas of products and services that would capitalize on the opportunities and meet the challenges. Now we need to describe those visionary concepts to make them more real.
Without a vision, it is difficult to make choices. A vision is a mental GPS system that guides us to better futures. It is what you need to be intentional and build a future for your business.
Car makers have been doing this for years by taking concept cars to motor shows to illustrate the future direction of their brand to potential customers. Other concepts might not be a physical prototype like a model, but a drawing, a description, or a role play. Explaining your vision to someone else in detail is a useful exercise as it forces you to make choices and create a more concrete concept.
So, imagine yourself in the future scenario providing the service or product you have come up with. What does that look like, sound like, feel like? What are the steps in providing the product or service? Try and capture this by writing a description. If you are working in a team have a discussion to make sure everyone shares the understanding of the concept.
When there is a clear vision, it is easier to select the preferable scenarios. Visualize and concretize the service idea, and review it against the opportunities and threats you identified for the future scenario. Ask yourself – does it really capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate against the threats? This process helps to verify and validate the chosen idea.
Now it’s time to pick one scenario and visionary concept. This way attention can be focused on following the development paths leading towards the desired vision and avoiding those that do not lead the right way.
Answer the following questions:
What is the chosen scenario?
Who are the target groups for the concept?
What is the concept – name and description?
What new or unique features does the concept offer?
Why does this concept fit the chosen scenario?
Who would implement the concept?
Who would finance the concept?
Is there a demand?
By studying the section (video duration 4:36), you can start building ideas for the future of your business using visionary concepts by identifying and concretizing the future opportunities and challenges that the scenario presents.