Signals for Strategists: Sensing Emerging Trends in Business and Technology

This book is for strategists—leaders, managers, entrepreneurs—who are so caught up in the daily pressures of business that they’re missing key signals of their future reality. It’s like driving a car heads down, staring at the dashboard, rather than heads up, looking through the windshield. We need to do both. The book is devoted to the practice of sensing, or scanning the horizon for signs of emerging trends. The sooner we see them, the better our response.

Each chapter starts with a set of signals—data we observed that, taken together, helped us to reveal a trend. The impact of new technology on strategy is a theme of the book, and each chapter looks at how organizations are using new technologies to their advantage.

The goal is to spark meaningful conversations within organizations: How could we participate in the collaborative economy? What could our CIO and our CMO be doing to drive strategy, innovation, and revenue growth? What could we do to leverage the Internet of Things and intelligent automation as catalysts of invention? Could we use MOOCs as pivots for corporate training, recruiting, and marketing? How might technology transform the manufacturing process, our supply chain, and the knowledge work that we do? Could we take advantage of the renaissance in domestic energy (oil and gas)? What could we be doing to counter cyber crime? What is our organization doing to tune into signals of emerging trends that may be relevant to us?

In an environment where the pace of change is accelerating, sensing has become an essential discipline for all organizations. No matter your role in an organization, sensing emerging trends can make you more effective and more valuable in your work. If you’ve been working too heads-down lately and feel overwhelmed by data and deadlines, then this book is for you. It’s a quick read designed to give you a heads up on your horizon.

About the Author

David Schatsky is a senior manager at Deloitte LLP. He analyzes emerging technology and business trends, including the growing impact of cognitive technologies for the firm’s leaders and its clients. David is the coauthor of Demystifying artificial intelligence: What business leaders need to know about cognitive technologies, and Cognitive technologies: The real opportunities for business (Deloitte UP, 2015).

Before joining Deloitte, David ran a research and advisory firm that provided market intelligence and advice on corporate sustainability. Prior to that, he was president of Jupiter Research, the leading global provider of research and advice on Internet business. Earlier in his career, he built IT systems for Wall Street investment banks, developed international business relationships for an Italian software company, and served clients of a developer of advanced workstations used in artificial intelligence research.

David earned a Master of Arts degree in international economics and U.S. foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science at Tufts University.