STRA4 – Strategic Foresight for Sustainable Innovation and Growth, Case “Future Customer in SIX Cluster”
MAIN OBJECTIVE
We aim to develop the foresight capabilities of Finnish industry to support the transition to sustainable growth.
The goal is to enable companies to broadly utilize foresight methods and work with companies to integrate future insight into business planning.
More information
OBJECTIVES
in more detail
Objective in STRA4 project:
Emphasis on developing strategic foresight is crucial in an environment experiencing rapid and constant changes from emerging technologies, global systemic challenges, and most pressingly, the climate crisis.
In the STRA4 project, companies and research organizations jointly develop new knowledge and innovations enabling export driven sustainable business and growth. The research enhances disruptive business thinking and organizational capabilities to utilize emerging technologies and disruptions, and improves capabilities for understanding future customers and consumers. In the STRA4 project, this is achieved by investigating
-
what aspects of corporate foresight practices are most effective in generating measurable impact on company performance (WP1)
-
how corporate foresight processes and methods support the development of environmentally and economically sustainable practices in the industry (WP2)
-
how should foresight be conducted and communicated so that it can best serve decision-making processes related to new market identification and market entry (WP3)
-
how organisation´s dynamic capabilities are configurated in line with market emergence, variations and evolution (WP4).
-
how companies benefit from future customer understanding, and how it supports their offering development to reach preferable futures and achieve growth (WP5).
Objectives in "Future Customer in SIX Cluster"
New, technology-based service offering makes it possible to target long term visions of desired futures, for which customers need to adjust. The desired futures may include higher efficiency, better sustainability and other positive impacts, but at the same time they may require learning new skills, behavior change and acceptance.
The need for change may also arise from the customers and require actions in companies. Our hypothesis is that combining futures studies and customer research brings the benefit of creating and collecting information on customer experiences in a future setting.
The approach is not limited to how the majority of customers behave at the present moment, but instead it builds on an active dialogue with customers profiled as leading-edge customers on what is possible to create with technology and how they experience the possibilities.
In the SIX case, our aim is to understand how the changes in the operational environment are impacting customer preferences and behavior, as well as emerging and new business models.
STRA4 project aims to develop new foresight capabilities, practices and networks to support the transition of Finnish companies to sustainable innovation and growth.
To that end, the project is:
1. Co-creating new foresighttools and methods to future-proof businesses
2. Developing empirical research-based insights on future capabilities, strategic decision-making and impact assessment of foresight
3. Building and launching the “Corporate foresight network” to collaborate and share new ideas, solutions and practices for sustainable future
In addition, STRA4 aims to foster discussion and thought leadership on actionable strategic foresight in Finland.
Future customer in SIX Cluster -case as a part of STRA4 project aims to:
1. Understanding what kind of customer groups can be identified as representatives of the future customers
2. Analyzing the practices, preferences and roles of future customers
3. Understanding how the changes in the operational environment are impacting customers behavior and emerging and new business models
The research in this case is conducted by first interviewing the experts and key persons in the cluster to gain an overall understanding about the present state and the future expectations in the cluster. After that, customer interviews will be conducted to be able to understand and analyze the future customer preferences as well as related challenges and possibilities for the SIX companies. Besides, co-creation workshops are organized for the SIX cluster companies to share and iterate the findings together.
RESEARCH / FOCUS AREAS
-
Customer experience
-
Future customer behaviour
-
Strategic foresight
OTHER DETAILS
1,5 million €
BUDGET
PROJECT PARTNERS AND PROJECT FUNDERS
COMPANIES SUPPORTING PUBLIC RESEARCH
