Providing new insights for service strategy through foresight and design
Kespro, Finland’s leading wholesale distributor in the food and beverage industry and part of K-Group, wanted to anticipate future market trends to improve its service strategy. The challenge was to create the basis for a strategy that not only met current customer needs but also anticipated future market shifts.
Framtid facilitated a futures design project that combined foresight methods with design thinking to enhance Kespro’s service development. The collaborative futures design sprint consists of three workshops during which the key players from Kespro leadership and service development team anticipated and ideated direction for the future service strategy.
Methods
Foresight
Trend Analysis: The team analyzed and prioritized key trends curated by Framtid’s foresight expert. Trends covered economic volatility, customer behavior, sustainability, competitive landscape, and emerging technologies.
Scenario Planning: Based on trend developments participants developed multiple future scenarios, considering factors like technological advancements, sustainability, and shifting consumer preferences.
Design
Opportunity Mapping: Different scenarios act as a boost for defining the problem statements from business and customer perspectives.
Ideation and roadmap: The rapid ideation sprint summed up the discussions and trend explorations and provided innovative new business ideas for service strategy to be screened. This phase combined the future to the present day.
”We found this project very useful for our strategy development as we wanted to gain a better understanding of the future trends yet combine that to the everyday business. In a short time, we managed to gain a vast amount of information.”
– Taiju Jaatinen, Head of Service Development, Kespro
The fusion of foresight and design methods provided forward-thinking perspectives for Kespro service development team to build the strategy.
The key findings during the process were for example:
- Sustainability as a business driver: During the project Kespro team realized how sustainability can be advanced to both their own and their customers’s business.
- Diversity in thinking as business catalyst: Increasing diversity in customers requires diversity in internal thinking
- Digitalisation leads the way in service development: Wholesale business continues on the path of digitalization and servitization through new technologies.
- Resilience to cope with uncertainty enhances leadership: Continuous and systematic foresight practices strengthen resilience in the organization and ensure business continuity.
Need help in advancing your strategy with foresight and scenarios? Contact us!
Contact us
Framtid Consulting Oy
Phone: +358 40 7345654
Email: satu.wahlberg@framtid.fi