The Future Revisted: A review of Alternative Futures: Scenarios for Business in Australia to the year 2015
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The future came quickly… that’s a key conclusion from the soundings taken today of the Australian Business Foundation’s project on alternative futures scenarios which was undertaken originally in 1999.
Overview & Comments
The intention of the original project was to make sense of how the future might pan out for businesses and to canvas the most productive responses, so as not to be caught unprepared. That project provided four plausible alternatives pictures of the future for business in Australia to 2010, being - "First Global Nation", "Sound the Retreat", "Brave Old World" and "Green is Gold".
To read the 1999 alternative business futures study, see http://www.abfoundation.com.au/research
Over 2007 and 2008, the Australian Business Foundation commissioned Susan Oliver, one of the expert futurists responsible for the 1999 scenarios project, to sound out how our pictures of the future were unfolding and to refresh them for the next decade. We report the findings in The Future Revisted.
Our 1999 scenarios and the factors underpinning them are not only proving durable, but they arrived ahead of time. Witness the trajectories of globalisation, bringing both winners and losers, both unprecedented economic opportunities and crises of war and terrorism. We are experiencing the rise of China and shifts in geopolitics and trade. The potency of the knowledge economy is being demonstrated in reality with new internet-enabled global enterprises. Environmental sustainability, climate change and energy use are indisputably now mainstream business issues on the agenda of both developing and developed nations.
Given this assessment of our 1999 futures scenarios, the Australian Business Foundation has taken a fresh look at how the forces for change are playing out to 2020. We offer a snapshot of five critical factors likely to affect Australia and its business activities towards 2020. These five factors are:
1. Energy and resources conscious 21st century will redefine basic economic and social parameters.
2. Significant changes in global economic geography are reshaping trade and geopolitics.
3. Changing patterns of work and demand for skilled people is a crunch issue for Australia.
4. Unleashing innovation is a prescription for Australia’s enduring prosperity, whether facing an economic boom or a global downturn.
5. An outward looking Australia can contribute to defining and achieving the society and global community we want.
At the time of writing this, Australia is facing significant unprecedented challenges. The Australian economy is being challenged, the global financial system is frail, and economies around the world have entered recession. We ask: how long will it last? What can governments do to ensure we beat off a recession, that we do not have widespread job losses and that the financial system can continue to support the needs of business for capital?
From crisis emerges a new opportunity. We will not emerge from the global economic crisis the same as we entered it. Where next? These are just some of the issues confronting both Australian businesses and Australia amongst never ending environmental, social, and political issues compounding an increasingly globalised interconnected world.
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