By PETER SHELDRAKE 

ONE of the greatest frustrations facing business is the process
of finding future opportunities. These opportunities are the
most important to find, but in trying to do so, companies
quickly come up against the fact that it is impossible to
predict the future.

Businesses grow and develop through successfully identifying new
opportunities and exploiting them. At present, they do this in
part through seeing the potential uses of emerging and improving
technologies. In addition, opportunities are also found through
emerging market needs and niches.

An example of an opportunity of this kind is the discussion in
the press about the dangers of long-distance air travel in
cramped conditions. To a successful businessman, a problem is an
opportunity - there must be dozens of people thinking of ways to
make money through this opportunity.

For example, I thought of going into a joint venture with one of
those companies that makes massage devices in chairs - and
putting the device in the foot rest of the seat in the
aeroplane.

However, would it not be better to identify an emerging
opportunity - to 'see it' as it were, even before it eventuates,
and be positioned to make use of the opportunity. The trouble
is, even the best of entrepreneurs are unable to predict the
future.  Or are they?  

There are some aspects of the future that are relatively
predictable. For example, demographic projections are, generally
speaking, very easy for the next five to 20 years. Most of the
people we are considering are already alive, and, save some
unexpected major catastrophe, patterns of morbidity and birth
rates will remain relatively easy to determine. This is, of
course, an immensely important area for prediction.

To give some simple examples, over the next 20 years, the number
of people in work as compared to the number of people of
retirement age will fall below two in most developed countries.
In other words, every working person will also be 'supporting'
nearly half a retired person. This is a dramatic shift in age
balances.

Another area where trends and future developments are fairly
predictable is in information and communications technologies.
Voice-activated computers, convergence in telecommunications,
broadcasting and information systems, visual mobile devices,
embedded intelligent systems - these are easy to predict.
However, unlike the case of demographics, we don't know when,
where and exactly how all this is going to work out.

There is another approach, and that is the use of scenarios. By
developing a series of realistic scenarios for the future, it is
possible to do a number of things.

First, you can examine the 'drivers' of future scenarios - the
forces and the changes that would lead to a scenario becoming
the future we actually experience. Those forces can then be
tracked and reviewed: as circumstances change, so increasing
evidence will allow you to feel more confident that one of your
scenarios is more likely to emerge, or is becoming redundant.

Second, you can use scenarios to help make choices about how to
act to increase the likelihood of your preferred scenario
emerging.

It is possible to influence the future, and if you have thought
systematically about what possible futures could emerge, you are
then better placed to assess the effects of interventions.

The converse of this is also true. Wise analysis of scenarios
helps you identify risks and threats, and ways to manage risk
more effectively.

However, the third use of scenarios is the one that interests
me, in particular. Scenarios allow us to contemplate future
opportunities -before they even occur.

To illustrate that idea, suppose we have a scenario that
suggests that hydrocarbon power for land transportation (petrol
and its variants) will be replaced by electrical power (fuel
cells). To an entrepreneur, this is a gold mine! What would be
needed to ensure effective access to fuel cells and their
components? How would they be recharged? Where? What could be
done with the spent fuel cells? Equally interesting, what
opportunities exist inside the gradual phasing out of petrol
engines?

Developing scenarios is one of the most powerful ways we know to
help us think about the future. It is true that we can't predict
the future, but we can think about the future in a systematic
way.

Peter Sheldrake is the Professor of Business Entrepreneurship at
RMIT. MIM collaborates with RMIT in various management education
and training programmes. For more details, please call MIM
Customer Service at 03-21654611, e-mail enquiries@mim.eduor
visit www.mim.edu.