For over 20 years SAMI Consulting has been helping organisations make robust decisions in uncertain times. We are known as the home of scenario planning, and also for helping organisations implement their strategy.

We understand the barriers to managing in uncertain times. We help our clients overcome these: we explore with them emerging uncertainties in their own field and in the wider world; we demonstrate how to recognise and understand emerging risks. All our services are designed to increase capacity to make robust decisions in uncertain times, and to carry the decisions through into the organisation. Sometimes the concern is regeneration, sometimes innovation, sometimes our help is instrumental in articulating the key questions and developing policy and strategy. We work with leading corporates, non-profits, to governments and supra-national organisations.

The issues we have helped clients to tackle internationally range from policy and strategy and industrial development to knowledge transfer.

Policy and strategy

A project with the African Futures Institute is examining the effect of external issues on governance, and using scenarios to develop a robust policy and strategy for Liberia. The project also includes knowledge transfer.

For the European Commission, we worked on the High Level Expert Group considering research policy towards converging technologies – nano, bio, info, cogno. We used scenarios for the future of Europe to create a common language for the team of 16 nationalities and 13 academic disciplines and underpin the recommendations. For the European Frontiers Agency Frontex, we used scenarios to explore the issues of migration from the south into Europe, as part of their risk management programme. For the City of London we used scenarios for China and India to explore the potential impact of their growth trajectories on London’s financial services markets.

For the Romanian government, we worked with the team developing strategy and policy for Higher Education in 2025, using scenarios to integrate the work of a multiplicity of working groups. The Green paper and White paper are now in production.

A project with Decision Strategies International for Fortis Bank in Belgium developed scenarios for the future of Belgian healthcare and explored the implications for healthcare providers, Government healthcare policy and Fortis’s financing of healthcare supplies.

Industrial policy and development

In Estonia, we helped the Estonian Development Fund formulate their strategies for IR based industries – health, education and financial services. In Norway we used scenarios with the Norwegian government to develop a strategy towards tourism. In Malaysia we worked with the national industrial laboratory SIRIM to develop plans for a new medical devices industry. This used a Task Force of senior academics, industrialists and civil servants over a time span of three months to develop scenarios and road maps, and led to three new industrial clusters.

For the European Health and Safety Agency EU-OSHA, we are using scenarios to identify, develop and test risks inherent in a range of “green jobs”.

Diageo was concerned about future developments in Turkey. A scenarios project developed several different futures for Turkey, based on the demographics of a booming population and a move to the towns from the country and the effect this would have on Turkey’s traditional secular government and society. As a result of the scenarios Diageo decided not to invest in Turkey but to watch some early indicators of future directions.

Pakhoed is a shipping and logistics company headquartered in the Netherlands. They were planning to expand in South East Asia in the mid 90’s. A scenario project identified a possible scenario as “melt-down” of the trading structure in South East Asia, due to over extended banks, and Pakhoed put their plans in the area on hold.

Two projects for Unilever looked at the directions for consumer markets in Russia as it opened up to the West – would the markets look for Western ie global brands or prefer local brands. The first project supported a small investment; the second underpinned a major move into the Russian market. The scenarios explored the migration to cities, issues of distribution, the build-up of access to television and other advertising media, and the demographics of an ageing population.

Two projects for United Distillers studied the cultural evolution of India and South Africa and the potential for whisky markets. In India, the project had the effect of ensuring that the middle managers in UD India had a realistic view of the market potential by considering paths for India other than the merging into Western culture. In South Africa, the main issue for UD was the growth or otherwise of the South African market. Two scenarios were used as the basis for all subsequent strategic planning. And a short project in Poland looked at the cultural effects of joining the EU, and the effect on the United Distillers business there. As a result United Distillers invested heavily in Poland and have built major market share.

Knowledge transfer

We gave a series of courses on the development and use of scenarios for UNIDO, which has led to a long term relationship with Nakazawa of Mexico, where we have worked with a number of government departments and corporates.

We have helped train the Lithuanian Development Fund and the Higher Education community in Romania, in futures thinking.

Other projects have been undertaken in The Netherlands, France, West Indies and Namibia.