December 2011

In the past year we have changed the emphasis of eSAMI from a miscellany to a themed approach. So in May we discussed uncertainty, in June we discussed the changes in the world of scenarios, in July we covered some aspects of the future of pharmaceuticals, in August we focused on skills, in September on corporate governance and in October on Financial Services. We would welcome your feedback on this to feedback@samiconsulting.co.uk.

Looking back over the year, it has been a momentous year in Europe and the Middle East, with seismic shifts in the landscape. While we did foresee that cracking of the eurozone (in “Beyond Crisis”), we did not foresee the headlines in Saturday’s Independent “Europe leaves Britain”. The Long Finance work ( www.longfinance.net) explores global scenarios should the Washington consensus break down – we thought a food crisis in about 2030 might precipitate this, but current events suggest a shorter timescale could be appropriate. The event to launch the Report – “In Safe Hands – what next for Financial Services” is to be held on 25th January at Barnards Inn from 9:30 to 12:00 – please email us at l3f@samiconsulting.co.uk if you would like an invitation.

On a slightly different tack, I am a member of EFFLA – the European Forum for Forward Looking Activities. The aim is to do two things – in the short term to get the context for the research and innovation programmes set to a global and longer term perspective, and to embed the forward looking activities in the ongoing processes. In particular, one key question is how to ensure that the Member States understand an act in the interest of the longer term. If any of the readers of eSAMI have anecdotal or experimental evidence on what works and what does not, thoughts gratefully received – to effla@samiconsulting.co.uk.

A reminder that our book, “Here be Dragons”, is due to be published in February. It is in two halves – an account of a change project in as fictional organisation “The Columbus Project”, and “A Pilots Guide” describing the tools that were used. We can send you a pdf if you are interested, email us at hbd@samiconsulting.co.uk. We will be looking at a number of ways launching this – more in the January eSAMI.

We are also continuing our series of Futures Coaching events in March 2012: for details and to sign up see the SAMI web site www.samiconsulting.co.uk

Finally, very best wishes for Christmas and 2012 to all our readers, from all of us at SAMI.

November 2011

While so much of the world’s attention has been on the eurozone and its debt problems, some of the questions about how it all got out of control are being answered.

An excellent article (see www.ScientificAmerican.com) by David H Freedman in the November Scientific American “A formula for economic calamity” describes the events leading to the crash of 2008, in which sophisticated models were used by investment firms to calculate risk. The models are ubiquitous, and fail to take onto account important forces that affect the market, such as illiquidity – which is inherently unpredictable – and the fact that though a model applies to a single institution, in practice many institutions may be using similar models and hence create systemic risk.

He also makes the comparison with models of failure in the utilities, which have been very useful at heading off large scale black outs through cascade effects across the grid. But in the investment business, knowledge about the strength and nature of the connections between institutions is time dependent, sparse and unreliable, compared with the utilities. Given the difficulty of this sort of modelling, he discusses the approach put forward by Nobel Prize winning Darrell Duffie of Stanford to “send simulated shocks through the organisation’s portfolio”. As he says,” these shocks should not be assigned probabilities but should rather be used as probes to seek out where the bank might have problems”. He suggests that if every major organisation examined the effect on them of 10 other major banks or countries failing, and shared this with the regulators, the system would be much better understood.

This links in with an interesting session, part of the Gresham College symposium series. It asked the question: “What makes a good regulator?” The write up of the discussion is on www.gresham.ac.uk. The basic tenet was that regulation should be for the public good, but there were lively discussions around two aspects of regulation:

• How can regulators stay ahead of the organisations they regulate, especially in complex areas such as utilities and finance? What is the balance of industry experience and outsider experience to avoid “capture” by the industry? In the US, many law firms specialise in regulation, and have seamless careers switching between regulators and the industry. We have not developed the same cadre of people.
• This relates to the point made strongly by Douglas Board of MaslowsAttic, who asked – are regulators’ jobs defined so that mere mortals can do them? What would motivate somebody who had the range of skills and competences specified, to take a regulator’s job: as he said “it doesn’t make you many friends”.

This gloomy view of the role of the regulator is one we have taken in the Long Finance Scenarios, where we suggest that unless there is diversity in regulatory regimes, global systems are likely to go under. The draft of Report can be found on l3f@samiconsulting.co.uk.

And we held an excellent debate on “Could better corporate governance have saved the News of the World” to launch SAMI Fellow Adrian Davies’ new book “The Globalisation of Corporate Governance”. The motion was proposed by Mark Goyder of Tomorrows Company and opposed by David Philips of PwC. Mark pointed out that Trollope described malfeasance in the publishing trade, and David thought that there would be corporate scandals “while people ran companies”. The event was moderated by SAMI Fellow Glen Peters, who described the approach to corporate governance in ancient Persia which involved amputation as an enforcement practice. It was chaired by SAMI Chairman Michael Owen.
The votes at the end were two to one against the motion, a surprising result given the topic of the day! A transcript will be on the SAMI web site shortly, on the news page .

We are also continuing our series of Futures Coaching events in October, November and March 2012: for details and to sign up see the SAMI web site www.samiconsulting.co.uk

October 2011

This month our focus is on how the health and welfare landscape in the UK is changing. Richard Walsh, SAMI Fellow summarises his views on these important changes.

The policy drivers are now pretty clear.

The NHS reforms will:

• consolidate the independent operation of NHS Foundation Trusts;
• devolve commissioning of local services to clinical care groups (largely run by GPs);
• abolish Primary Care Trusts (which used to carry out this activity in the past) although it looks like some PCT consortia will remain for a time due to concessions granted in the government “listening exercise”;
• abolish Regional “Strategic” Health Authorities;
• give overall commissioning responsibility to a new unelected “NHS Commissioning Board” with the intention of reducing the role of the Secretary of State for Health; and, following the listening exercise, the scope for private and NGO provision of services will be curtailed because they will not be allowed to compete with the NHS on price.

On the welfare side, more and more existing disability benefit claimants are being moved to job seekers allowance and reliance on means tested income support if they cannot get a job. This is because unemployment benefit values continue to drop in proportion to average incomes and the tests for receiving higher level disability benefits are much tougher than they were. The IPPR have recently argued for higher levels of unemployment benefits funded through loans but this would cost the Treasury money and has not attracted much political support.

On the social care side confusion reigns. The Dilnot report on long term care has proposed some interesting changes to cap the total and annual cash risks faced by people entering care homes. Unfortunately this too would cost the Treasury money and although on the face of it the caps (£35k total for care costs and £10k per year for living expenses costs) are simple, the report suggests a very complex system to calculate them and it is unlikely that anything will happen in this Parliament.

And over all this are the ambitious plans to reduce government spending drastically over the next few years. Despite good intentions even the NHS will have to achieve massive savings. This is because it is being asked to make efficiency savings at a level never before attempted and its budgets are being raided by other cash strapped departments, and local authorities, to carry out functions that have been allocated elsewhere. In previous tough times the reverse has been true – the NHS typically raided social care budgets.

But what does all this mean in practice? The early warning signs are there:

• increasing social discontent among those reliant on benefits; longer waiting times for hospital tests and admissions;
• continued NICE pressure on new high cost drugs;
• GPs offering private queue jumping on a self pay basis;
• and ongoing quality of care scandals, particularly for older people.

Overall, the impact for those relying on the State is difficult. But what of the role of private insurance? One would think that the markets for private medical and disability insurance would be booming. Actually this is not the case. The only real growth has been in the cheaper medical cash plan market and this has been at the expense of traditional full private medical insurance (PMI). This is due to a number of factors, for example full PMI is now very expensive and two thirds of the market is provided by employers for their employees. Without recovery this market will remain under pressure. The same applies to disability insurance. The only market that is likely to grow is for richer individuals – not the “squeezed middle”. In terms of population numbers this group is very small and not particularly relevant to social policy objectives except on the political battle ground between right and left.

Many have spoken about lack of growth of employment in the private sector not mopping up those made redundant from the public sector and in social provision a parallel process may occur – with no growth in private solutions to replace reduced state support. In scenario terms we were supposed to move from the largesse of the labour years to big society localism and “happy but broke”. If things continue as they are we may move to “unhappy and broke”. Not a good place to be... Let us hope things start to turn around soon.

Adrian Davies’ third book on Corporate Governance, on the impact of Globalisation, will be launched at the IT Livery Hall, 39a Bartholomew Close, London EC1A 7JN, from 5-7 on 3rd November. Places are limited so please reserve a place by emailing cg@samiconsulting.co.uk to reserve a place.

We are also continuing our series of Futures Coaching events in October, November and March 2012: for details and to sign up see the SAMI web site www.samiconsulting.co.uk

September 2011

This month our focus is on Corporate Governance and Reputation.

Adrian Davies, a Director of SAMI Consulting, is the author of a new book recently published by Gower, entitled ‘The Globalisation of Corporate Governance: The Challenge of Clashing Cultures’. This is the third book in a series which has treated corporate governance as a key instrument for the shaping and delivery of strategy, and, in particular, as a means of building and sustaining corporate reputation.

The new book explores a number of issues:

• The failure of corporate governance in financial services, which culminated in the crash of 2007/8. Was corporate governance no longer relevant or had it been overwhelmed by events? Adrian’s analysis concludes that too much emphasis had been placed on conformity with the codes designed to guide performance, with undue emphasis on ‘box ticking’ code by code, and little attention had been given to the behaviours of people working in the company, at all levels. A parallel might be drawn with the excessive focus on targets within government, rather than on empowering staff to perform to meet local needs. One key feature of the book is its emphasis on encouraging whistle blowers in order to uncover corrupt practices and maintain civilised behaviour.
• The challenge of developing sustainable corporate governance cultures in non-OECD countries. Many of these countries have adopted models of corporate governance based on those in Western countries, with insufficient attention to adapting them to their cultural ideals. Openness is a key requirement of Western corporate governance; in many other cultures it is nuanced by restraints on trust, tribal and family loyalties and concerns about reciprocation. Corruption is present in all societies. In most Western countries it is seen as corrosive of trust and to be countered with vigour. In some countries it is endemic and undermines both the rule of law and the fabric of society itself. Globalisation should act as a powerful deterrent to corruption, since commerce is only sustainable in a framework of law and cross-border trust.
• A strategic issue in corporate governance is the diffusion of power. Leadership has too often been seen as a ‘Napoleonic’ quality, driven by the vision of a charismatic and dominant person, and not by the shared vision of a balanced and gifted group. Too often boards are dominated by the ambitions of one powerful individual; this is countered by strengthening the number and quality of non-executive directors, as the Higgs Report now requires for quoted companies in the UK.

We are planning an event to debate these and other current issues around Corporate Governance and Reputation. Please put in your diary 5pm to 7pm on 3rd November at the IT Livery Hall, and reply to us at cg@samiconsulting.co.uk to reserve a place.

We are also continuing our series of Futures Coaching events in October, November and March 2012: for details and to sign up see the SAMI web site www.samiconsulting.co.uk

August 2011

This month our topic is future skills needs and training.

Over the past three years SAMI has been increasingly involved in analysing future training needs for the UK as a whole and for individual sectors.

The Sector Skills Councils are required to produce an annual audit of the skills base in their sectors, and recently there has been greater focus on looking at longer-term skill requirements. SAMI’s involvement started in 2008 when Colin Fletcher, Fellow of SAMI suggested to ConstructionSkills that scenarios would be the ideal way to assess the unpredictable and rapidly changing demand for skills in the construction sector beyond its current five year forecasting horizon.

The ConstructionSkills project was undertaken with Experian who run the ConstructionSkills construction labour force forecasting model. Four scenarios describing alternative possible outcomes with respect to the possible level and composition of national construction output as well as potential changes in construction systems, processes and technology in 2020 were developed. The varying assumptions on the key economic and market issues and industry productivity levels were fed into an extended version of the model to develop four quantified possible futures regarding future skill requirements for different trades and professions. You can read the SAMI case study at here, and the report itself here

In 2010, UKCES (United Kingdom Commission for Employment and Skills) invited SAMI to participate in the National Strategic Skills Audit for England 2010. SAMI undertook horizon scanning and developed scenarios that fed into the main report. See our case study here and the final report here.

Following the English audit, UKCES were asked by the Welsh Government to do a similar task for Wales, and SAMI was again asked to develop the scenarios. Our case study is here and the final UKCES reports are available here.

In the meantime, SAMI had been asked to do an analysis of key industry drivers and alternative scenario outcomes for long-term sector skill requirements to 2020 for IMI (The Institute of the Motor Industry, the Sector Skills Council for the retail motor industry), see case study .

In turn, this led to a request by EU Skills, the sector skills council for the energy and utilities sectors, to undertake an analysis of long-term industry skill drivers for the UK power sector as an initial step in a wider foresight programme. This time the analysis was extended out to 2050 in order to explore the possible very long-term impacts of emerging technologies as well as possible step changes in the economic, social, political and regulatory environment.

While the analysis described above has focussed on national or sector skill requirements, SAMI has built up a significant databank on future skill drivers, much of which is relevant to individual organisations, both in the public and private sectors. SAMI also has a number of tools and processes which it has used to assist companies in exploring the implications of alternative future scenarios on their HR policies. This capability can be used to support an organisation in examining the current status quo with respect to its current human resource policies and skill requirements and how these might may need to change over time to address future needs, thus better preparing the organisation to respond to the key issues and uncertainties which inevitably lie ahead in these turbulent times. For more information, please contact colin.fletcher@samiconsulting.co.uk.

July 2011

This month our focus is on pharmaceuticals.

Michael Owen, fellow and chairman of SAMI Consulting, is working for Chatham House on the future of the pharmaceutical industry as part of a broader project on the world’s changing industrial landscape, looking out to 2020 and beyond. In many respects, the research-based pharma industry has been a global success story in the latter decades of the twentieth century, with the discovery and availability to patients of many important breakthrough medicines. However, in recent years, the combination of rising research costs, lower research productivity and increasingly stringent cost containment by the health authorities that purchase drugs has led to a significant squeeze on industry margins. This has lead to a series of mergers and takeovers and a questioning of whether the industry needs to invent a new success model if it is to continue to prosper. (See www.pwc.com/pharma2020)

In terms of scientific developments, the industry should be looking to an exciting vision from the discoveries in genetics and genomics that offer the prospects of identifying and treating the fundamental origins of disease – as opposed to treating symptoms – and targeting highly-effective treatments to specific sub-groups of individuals. However, the science is likely to prove much difficult to harness to produce new therapies and the timescale for a medical revolution will extend beyond 2020. At the same time, the economic pressures on the industry from those who finance drug budgets show no signs of abating. The uncertainties facing the industry – both from science and economics – lend themselves ideally to a scenario approach. (For some EU scenarios: www.eufutureofhealthcare.com)

While most of this drama is being played out in the western markets, that comprise the vast majority of current global sales, interesting developments are taking place in Asia. Both China and India have shown very fast growth rates in recent years. China has jumped over the past ten years from being the ninth largest market to being the third largest market, behind the USA and Japan. The quality of Indian science and technology has also grown in international stature. India now has the largest number of manufacturing plants approved by the US FDA (the international gold standard) of any country outside the USA. It has always been surprising that Japanese pharma companies have not been as successful on the global stage as they have been in other sectors such as cars and electronics. This may be starting to change with Takeda’s acquisition of the Swiss company Nycomed, and developments in other Japanese companies should be watched with interest. (See www.Asia-pharma.com)

June 2011

This edition of eSAMI starts a new style – each month there will be a set of thoughts and links around a single topic. Some links will be to our blog, http://samiconsulting.wordpress.com/, others to external sites or the SAMI web site. And of course we will continue to give you details of events and courses that we are running or think you might find interesting.

This month the focus is on scenarios. The reason for choosing this is that recently we have struck by the widely felt need to find ways of dealing with uncertainty. The best introduction to scenarios remains Peter Schwartz’s “The Art of the Long View”, with Gill Ringland’s books on Scenario Planning rated as the best for practitioners.

As we use our expertise to help our clients think about the future, one topic that a number of people are worried about is cloud computing, coming into new prominence with the recent iCloud announcement from Apple. How safe will your business intellectual property be, let alone your family photos, if they are stored on the Cloud? What are the chances of failure compared with an office fire? With business continuity failure? We are running a scenario workshop in central London on July 26th and offer places on a first come first served basis. If you are interested please contact john.milner@samiconsulting.co.uk, or see the blog for more on this. In a similar vein, we developed some scenarios for the future of communications in 2015 – see the detail on the blog.

I came across an interesting paper which surveyed the use of futures methods globally, and found that were significant differences in the approaches used. A discussion of the results and the full reference is on http://samiconsulting.wordpress.com/. And discussions with Laurie Young, author of “Marketing the Professional Services Firm” and co-editor with Gill Ringland of “Scenarios in Marketing”, led us to identify some current areas of social science research which help explain the power of scenarios in times of uncertainty. A thought piece with preliminary ideas is on the blog, and comments are very welcome.

And our book “Here be Dragons” is reaching the stage where we realise that it’s really rather good – I can say that because so much of it is from my co-authors Martin Duckworth, Patricia Lustig, Rob Phaal of the University of Cambridge and Chris Yapp. It builds on the experience of several of us in using future thinking in organisations, so we lead with “Marco’s story” in which he is assigned a new type of task – building new businesses – and survives the tribulations of real life to deliver. His story is backed up by “How to, when to” guidelines. We are experimenting with publishing via Lightning Source who print on demand, thus saving the planet!

Finally, the next Futures Coaching courses are:

• Introduction to Futures, 16 June, London
• Scenario Planning, 4 July, London
• Applying Futures, 5 July, London

May 2011

As the glorious weather continues and events in the UK push world news off our front pages – the Arab spring, the tsunami damage in Japan, the tornadoes in the US – it is sometimes hard to keep a focus on just how many changes we are living through. I presented to some 150 people at an event organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, where the extremely high attendance was – from my unscientific polling beforehand – because in these uncertain times the title “Why scenario planning is particularly needed now” had extreme resonance. The presentation can be found on the SAMI web site here.

Richard Walsh also presented this month on “The Role of Scenarios in Business Strategy Development” at a conference of the Global Association of Risk Professionals – the presentation can be found on GARP website and also here.

On uncertainty, the May/June issue of “Foreign Affairs” has an interesting article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb on “The Black Swan of Cairo”, pointing out the similarities of the Arab Spring and the financial crisis. In both cases, the system has been constrained and unable to make ongoing adjustments – financial institutions “too big to fail” and governments with no mechanism for adjustments. He suggests that highly constrained systems will in due course explode – and the more constrained the volatility, the bigger the regime jump is likely to be. See on the Foreign Affairs website.

Our next book, provisionally titled “Here be Dragons” is about how managers can deal with uncertainty. We have joined with Rob Phaal of the University of Cambridge to describe how in a real organisation internal scanning, horizon scanning, scenarios, innovation, and road-mapping work together to support decision making and change. So we found the current McKinsey Quarterly, bylined “How to grow again”, very timely with two useful articles on Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming and Sparking Creativity in Teams.

We continue to offer a range of events. The Futures Coaching events continue into June and July. For details and to register, click here. Colin Fletcher and Gill Ringland are leading a seminar for HR in Business on “Using Scenarios to think Strategically about Skills” on July 1st: To sign up, the web site is http://www.hrsociety.co.uk/index.php/events/96.

April 2011

As I write this I have been tempted by the sun outside – London is warmer than the Mediterranean just now – and am squinting into my laptop as I write – so please let me know if there are any betises.

A recent report by SAMI with the Health and Safety Executive for EU-OSHA, the European Agency for Health and Safety, “Foresight of New and Emerging Risks top Occupational Safety and Health associated with new technologies in Green Jobs by 2020”, can be found on the EU-OSHA website. The next stage of the project is for John Reynolds and Martin Duckworth to run scenario workshops across Europe, leading to a final report in 2012.

Shell has updated its Energy Scenarios to 2050 with a set which considers the impact of the global economic and financial crisis. As Shell says on their web site, “Humanity is entering an era of ‘volatile transitions’ as the effects of energy consumption on the environment become increasingly clear. This will impact political decision-making, the economy and the choices people make about the way they live. Effective collaboration between society, politicians and businesses will be vital in positively influencing how these transitions play out.” The scenarios can be found on Shell's website.

There are a number of think pieces on the SAMI blog and we would welcome your feedback – for instance, what are the analogies of the happenings in the Middle East – should they be with 1989? 1848? Or 1517 (the Protestant Reformation)? What role have social media played to make this different? How about the influence of the Serbian group Otpor? (See Carnegie Council website for details.) Please email us at MiddleEast@SAMIconsulting.co.uk if you have views on this.

We are not the only people talking about how radically the world has changed; Management Centre Europe has produced a list of six trends which point to some of these shifts in the world that businesses are facing today. The trends that they chose are:

• Economic Shift - as a new rich world is coming to the fore
• Resource Demand - as world population is growing and in particular the middle classes are growing and wanting more, putting an ever increasing demand on our natural resources
• ICT’s Crucial Role – how ICT plays a major part in growth
• Growth Model – a new model for economic growth will (and must) emerge
• Government policy – emerging policies are critical to the changes happening in the world; they need to be the right policies
• Consumer Behaviour – as the world around us changes, so does the prevailing value system and our behaviour.

The series of futures training events run for the BIS Foresight Unit have been extended into next year. Our website has details. On the 5th May, Gill Ringland is talking to the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants on Scenario Planning.

March 2011

Would Mohamed Bouazizi have thought that the result of setting himself on fire on December 17th in Tunisia would be the demonstrations and sweeping changes that we are seeing across North Africa and the Middle East?. The reason for his protest? He was a street vendor protesting at the confiscation of his wares by a municipal official and her aides. As futurists, we did anticipate the effect of pent up resentment, and the comparison between the life style experienced and the images on satellite television and through the internet and social media. And we certainly flagged the pressures from a population dominated by young people, often with much more education than their parents. But anticipating trigger events, and hence the timing of change, is much harder. To help in tracking and anticipating events, the Chatham House web site is a source of informed and up to date comment, while we at SAMI are finding an increased interest in country scenarios as a way of thinking through potential political changes and their effects.

Another trigger event, a deep snowfall just before Christmas in Northern Europe and Eastern Europe, seems to have converged with increased consumer caution to cause a shift in the shopping patterns of consumers – as reported by CB Richard Ellis (http://www.cbre.eu/research) in their Retail Market Monthly January 2011. We think that online shopping is just one of the changes which will affect property, delivery and transportation services over the next decade – see our think piece on some of the ways in which technology will change the demand for property.

Articles published by SAMI people recently include:

• CEO Magazine “Why Corporate New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Last” by Patricia Lustig

• European Business Review “How and Why the 21st Century is Different” by Gill Ringland

• Computer Reseller News: “Will the “Value” in Value Added Reseller have to come from a Partner?” by Eric Kihlstrom

• Global Telecoms Business: “Does Innovation need Net neutrality?” by Eric Kihlstrom

Some events for your calendar:

• The Futures Coaching Programme 2011 from the Government Office for Science includes two events this month:
  Scenario Planning, 29 March, London
  Applying Futures, 30 March, London
  For more details click here.

• And SAMI Associate Chris Yapp has been asked to give a keynote at the IT Decisions 2011 conference, which evaluates the latest technology developments. You can reserve your free place now to access independent advice, thought-provoking keynotes, educational seminars, executive roundtables and product demonstrations – at the QEII Centre in Westminster on 28-29 June 2011. Click here to apply for a free place on-line.

February 2011

Some things that have interested us in the past month:

The World Economic Forum has produced “Global Risks 2011” - an excellent analysis of global systemic risks – see www.weforum.org/issues/global-risks/

A team of Masters students at St Andrews University used scenarios to think about the video games industry in Scotland in 2020, particularly relevant given the role of the industry in Dundee. The three scenarios were Knockout, Game Over, and Final Fantasy - in the latter, gaming techniques have broken out into a wide range of applications. The pdf of their report can be found here.

ACCA – the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants – has created a set of scenarios describing the role of the accountant – imagining The New Renaissance Accountant, The Global Translator, and The Gatekeeper. Copies in pdf of a booklet describing the scenarios are available from us, email accapdf@samiconsulting.co.uk.

Chris Yapp on his Future Tech British Computer Society blog has some thoughts about the links between energy security and IT - and points out that each community is liable to ignore its dependency on the other, He also points out that energy security is driving towards distributed provision, whereas cloud computing is moving in the reverse direction…..

And Carlo Resta, Senior Research Fellow of the Global Policy Institute, writes on the Roubini Global Economics blog of the “Moral Hazard” posed by financial institutions “too big to fail” - . He argues that currently tax payers take the downside and the bankers take the upside – or as Mervyn King has put it, “Never, in the field of financial endeavour, has so much money been owed by so few to so many”.

Finally, we are working with Logicalis on a series of Prevision events – and at the first of these, Lord Lamont had many provocative views on the future of the UK and European economies – and among his many witty asides one was particularly good for futurists, apparently one of Mrs Thatcher’s favourite quotations “the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs”.

Some events for your calendar:

The Futures Coaching Programme 2011 from the Government Office for Science:

• Introduction to Futures, 23 February 2011, London

• Scenario Planning, 29 March, London

• Applying Futures, 30 March, London

For more details click here.

The Long Finance Futurists Forum is running a workshop on 16th February at Barnard’s Inn, Holborn from 15:00 to 17:00. This will explore the implications of the scenarios for 2050 for FS in the shorter term. For more details or to register, email l3f@samiconsulting.co.uk.

And SAMI Associate Chris Yapp has been asked to give a keynote at the IT Decisions 2011 conference, which evaluates the latest technology developments. You can reserve your free place now to access independent advice, thought-provoking keynotes, educational seminars, executive roundtables and product demonstrations – at the QEII Centre in Westminster on 28-29 June 2011. Click Click here to apply for a free place on-line.

Maybe Spring will come after all ---

January 2011

As 2011 starts, a chance to look back and review 2010 and some of SAMI’s activities.

This recession has been markedly different from previous ones in two significant aspects – organisations have not cut back on training, and have focused on innovation to renew themselves. So we have seen demand for education and training events at senior levels in the public, private and NGO sectors. We are running course on behalf of the Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre. These are: Introduction to futures 23rd February; Scenario Planning 29th March; and Applying Futures 30th March. For more details contact training@samiconsulting.co.uk. Skills have been a subject that has exercised a number of our clients, with scenario based studies across England, for Wales, and for sector skills councils. The reports which are in the public domain can be accessed via www.samiconsulting.co.uk.

We have also found that the book “Beyond Crisis: Achieving Renewal in a Turbulent World” (Gill Ringland, Oliver Sparrow and Patricia Lustig, published by John Wiley in 2010) has hit the spot, with global recognition of the changing business environment, and “aha’s” in response to the framework that facilitates organisations renewing themselves. For more details on education, training and consulting on renewal, contact patricia.lustig@samiconsulting.co.uk.

The international demand for “our sort of stuff” has continued – with European wide projects, and individual projects in Eastern Europe, Asia and Mexico. The need to develop strategies and plans in the context of views of the future – robust decisions in uncertain times – is becoming widely recognised.

A project to develop an OFT Quality Standard for Income Protection Insurance is now just about complete. In it we used the SAMI 7 Questions™ to survey companies and opinion formers who manufacture, distribute and have a public policy interest in this market. The next stage will be for the sponsoring companies, and other potential sponsors, to proceed with turning the research into reality: more information from richard.walsh@samiconsulting.co.uk.

We held a one day workshop on “Expected Surprises” to help organisations anticipate Black Swan events – it was very successful and we are looking for networks or groups that might want to undertake one for their own members or organisation – for more information contact es@samiconsulting.co.uk.

As part of the Long Finance project run by Z/Yen and Gresham College, we have started the Long Finance Futurists Forum. This bridges between long term thinking – Scenarios for Finance in 2050 – and the implications for the sectors of financial services in the near term. A workshop will be held on 16th February – for more information contact l3f@samiconsulting.co.uk.

In 2010, we published papers in Cover, Futures, Global Telecoms Business Magazine, International Journal of Public Sector Leadership, Journal of Research and Social Intervention, Strategy, Strategy & Leadership, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, The Treasurer, and Utility Weekly. The subjects ranged from scenarios and strategy to leadership and organisation development, and across health, telecoms, financial services and utilities markets. Where permitted by copyright, these can be found on www.samiconsulting.co.uk: otherwise for more information contact lynda.mcgill@samiconsulting.co.uk In addition Richard Walsh writes a regular monthly column for Cover, the health journal, and Chris Yapp writes a monthly blog on IT Futures for the BCS.

We gave the prestigious Gresham Lecture on “Beyond Crisis” and gave seminars for the Association of Sustainability Professionals, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Strategic Planning Society, the University of the West of England and the APM Forum of NGOs. We addressed the Network of Museum Directors on scenarios, The-Network on scenarios for FS in 2050, and the Institute of Risk Management on Risk.

And last year we re-structured SAMI, appointing Michael Owen as Chairman, Dr Glen Peters as a Non-Executive Director, John Reynolds as Director responsible for Finance & General Purposes, Richard Walsh as Director responsible for People, and myself as CEO and Marketing Director. This gives us a stable base to underpin the growth we expect in 2011.

To discuss how SAMI can help you through consulting, education and training, or research, to make more robust decisions in uncertain times, please contact us at info@samiconsulting.co.uk.