 Scenarios Helped Double the Value of Investments Attracted -
Ian Mann, June 2006
"These two organisations are extremely different – one is the Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) of a Southern African state and the other is a South African listed media group with primary assets in broadcast. Using the methodology I learned from the course, we were able to develop scenarios for both organisations. In both cases all the senior staff members participated energetically in the process of defining their relevant transactional and contextual environments. The process itself was worth the time they committed to it – they had never considered their environments as thoroughly before, and area specialists were engaged way out of their intellectual comfort zones. For the IPA we produced three scenarios that we called ‘The Taxi’ (the region in melt-down); ‘The Corolla’ (the environment is reliable and stable, it is not attractive, but it is functioning and able to provide for its citizens); and ‘The Bentley Sports’ (the investment community, both within and out of the country, are impressed by the region which is exceptionally well-run, growing at a steady, fast pace).
The media group also had three scenarios: ‘The bomb in the basement’ (an innovation renders the whole enterprise obsolete or ineffectual); ‘The rusting car’ (change is insidious and un-alarming and by the time the damage is apparent it is far too late to do anything about it); and ‘The rapids’ (changes come fast and furious, but with skill, strength and concentration they can be navigated).
Armed with only the three scenarios – in précis above – neither organisation was comfortable to go forward. Each preferred to have a functional guide that would allow for long-term investment and a guide on how to achieve it on Monday morning. Influenced by von Clauswich we developed a ‘functional strategy’ that would provide guidance to every level of the organisation irrespective of which scenario unfolded. Von Clauswich held that strategy isn’t ‘a lengthy action plan, rather it is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.’
In both cases we formulated the ‘central idea’ in a nutshell format, a code understood by insiders only. The media group’s Functional Strategy was ‘Symbiotic domination, Bleeding edge information, and Operational brilliance.’ These three principles, rooted in three clear scenarios has yielded some impressive bottom line results as has the ‘functional strategy’ of the IPA which has more than doubled the value of investments attracted." |
 Scenario Work Prepared us for the Latvian Meltdown, and Saved Hundreds from Poverty
Andres Spokoiny, February 2008
"I work as a regional director for the American Joint Distribution Committee, an international NGO that provides welfare services, humanitarian support and social development projects around the world. After attending the Oxford Scenarios Programme in 2008, I decided, together with my team, to use scenarios work to make sense of the context in the countries of which I’m responsible – mainly those of North-East Europe. We also wanted to ‘wind-tunnel’ our strategy and make sure that we were prepared for any eventuality.
Back then, the economy was booming and Latvia was growing at a staggering 10% a year. Yet, one of the scenarios showed a hard landing for the Latvian economy, coupled with a ‘slowdown’ in the West. With Latvian households deep in debt, a credit crunch we thought would be devastating for the middle class with mortgages and loans pegged to hard currency. We realised that if this scenario came to fruition, one of the main tenets of our strategy will be inadequate.
Our strategy for the Baltic States implied that the market reforms were largely successful and that the middle class was going to be strengthened in the new market economy. The strong growth and the rapid accession to the EU seemed to confirm our vision. Our main support needed to go – in partnership with local NGOs – to what we called ‘vulnerable populations’ (mainly the elderly, which could not accumulate any capital during the communist times and were now living on very meagre pensions), and the ‘structurally poor’.
For the younger population, we would develop training, community and social development programmes, but not welfare ones. That strategy guided our action for over a decade with very good results; however, if our economic reality changed our strategy would be inadequate. Following the scenarios exercise, we decided to open ‘embryonic’ welfare programmes for population segments that we weren’t serving at that time. The programmes would not be fully developed but a ‘basic skeleton’ would be created with a network of local partners. For example, a ‘children at risk’ programme was launched and a ‘young families programme’ was developed. A job retraining centre was devised as well.
Training in these programmes was also provided to local NGOs and service providers. The ‘hard landing’ indeed came, but much harder than we had anticipated. The Latvian economy faced complete collapse, with a staggering 18% of shrinkage in GNP within just six months and a quarter of the workforce jobless, the Latvian government lacked the financial firepower to bail out its banks and businesses. Moreover, it had problems raising the resources to cover its expenses, and an austerity plan had to be launched, including measures that deepened the recession, like tax-hikes and elimination of subsides. However, we were right in predicting that those hit the hardest would be the middle class.
The phenomenon of the ‘new poor’ developed quite rapidly, young families of the emerging, westernised middle class, were suddenly facing poverty. Thankfully, through our preparation of a basic service structure to help this population, we were ready for the storm. The problem was one of scale – the crisis was deeper than we expected – but we had the ‘service delivery structure’ in place and ready to operate. The programmes we had created started delivering support almost immediately. Thus, hundreds of Latvian families were helped with minimum delay. The consequences of not having a support network would have been devastating for these families. Certainly, we would have reacted, but it would have taken us months to put in place a support structure and people would have suffered in the meantime.
Thanks to the scenarios work we had done, people were being adequately helped through the crisis."
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 A Grave Climate Change Scenario: Message to the World from the Top of the World -
Prashant Singh, February 2007
"I have known Dawa Steven Sherpa for a while now. Dawa, only in his 20s, has already been on top of Mount Everest two times. His company organises an unusual Everest Expedition every spring – promoting modern and improvised techniques to minimise (almost nullify) pollution on the Everest trail. Besides, his expedition encourages the Sherpa climbers to bring back to the base camp, tons of garbage left on the trail by the earlier climbers.
Dawa and I met some three-four times discussing our common concern on the impacts of Climate Change in the Himalayas and the tragedies it is likely to bring to all forms of lives inhabiting the Himalayan landscape. Even the best case scenario was just too dreadful to contemplate. The Climate Change has already arrived – worse nobody is noticing it.
The Himalayan glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented pace creating glacial lakes. The trillions of litres of waters that these lakes hold remain a constant reason for sleepless nights for the population living at the base of these lakes. The forests in Nepal are burning with intensity unprecedented in history. The villages even around Mount Everest have not had any snow for last two winters. Wild animals and insects are being observed moving to locations they have never been seen at in the past. Flowers bloom and fruits ripen before time. In a highly religious society like that of Nepal, unfortunately, many attribute divine reasons for such occurrences – very few looking for scientific reasoning.
Even the western world hardly considers Himalayas as a major victim of Climate Change. Dawa and I both felt that this scenario must change. If this does not happen, and the world remains indifferent to it, the impacts would be catastrophic as the Himalayas are not just a living place of a few thousands of indigenous communities; it provides water to more than a billion of the human population. It is not a just a thing of beauty, it is an economic asset the world cannot afford to ignore.
We decided to give a message to the world from the top of Mount Everest. We approached the Ace Mountaineer 'Apa Sherpa' who has already been on top of Everest 18 times (a world record) to attempt his 19th ascent – and this time with a greater cause to deliver this message to the world. He happily agreed and eventually succeeded doing so on 21 May this year. The picture (depicted top left) widely covered by global media became a definitive image of indigenous community raising their voice against the climate injustice meted out to them.
Locally, the President and Prime Minister of Nepal personally met with Apa and the campaign team and expressed their solidarity with the cause. This became the launching event for a year-long global campaign that my organisation WWF embarked on, called CLIMATE FOR LIFE. I currently lead this campaign. Building on the goodwill and media support earned by the initial event, it became a formidable campaign (www.climate4life.com) that had several ambitious events lined up leading up to the UNFCCC convention in Copenhagen that December. Events included engaging with several heads of state in the Himalayan countries and from the western world – to raise awareness of the impacts of Climate Change in the Himalayas, and call for appropriate actions.
My learning of Scenarios at the Saïd Business School came in handy on two counts. First it gave me a good handle to analyse the scenarios of climate change impacts on the Himalayas, and to assess the gravity of the situation that could be explained to any rational audience. Second, as the ascent to Mount Everest was fraught with risks the scenario analysis helped our team develop a good media strategy in all likely scenarios." |