Case study: Developing the future assumption of the top management

Client and assignment

One of the largest German insurance groups with more than 11.000 employees and 17 million clients assigned FMG to develop and analyse the future assumptions of the management board, thus creating the foundation for the revision of the strategy and important strategic decisions.

Goal

Project content and process

1. The FMG and two project managers of the client developed the central future questions of the insurance group for the next ten years.
2. On the basis of a preceding future radar, possible answers in form of projections (in the sense of cases about the future) were developed by the future managers of FMG.
3. The collected projections were validated on the basis of statistic facts as well as structured interviews of experts within the client's company.
4. In a workshop with the management board the projections were evaluated by every participant regarding his anticipation of the expectational probability.
5. The results of the individual evaluation were clearly outlined with the projections in a future panorama. 
6. Larger differences in the evaluations were discussed in the group and examined in argument balance sheets.
7. The projections were separated in the following three categories of future assumptions according to their average expectational probability:

Expectations
A future expectation is a projection whose expectational probability is considered high by the management. When categorizing a projection as expectation it is important, that the management board largely reached a consensus on it. These assumptions build the foundation for the company's strategy.

Eventualities
A future eventuality is either a projection, which expectational probability is considered medium or where opinions within the management team differ. The strategy must not depend on the occurrence of the future eventualities but should provide for its occurrence and non-occurrence in equal shares.

Non-expectations
Non-expectations are projections whose occurrence the management has categorized as unexpected. The non-expectations are a basis for the future strategy, too, as assumptions on what will quite sure not occur.

Results

• In cooperation with the FutureManagementGroup the management board of the company could efficiently develop holistic, joint and well-founded assumptions of the probable future.
• The joint assumption acts as base for the further strategy development. 
• By presenting all assumptions of the management board and the experts in a structured future panorama the foundations of the corporate strategy are perceivable and can be reviewed over time.

Client feedback

The management board was surprised how quickly and well-founded the different evaluations and assumptions of the individual managers were consolidated in a clearly arranged future panorama. The value of the future panorama for the foundation and robustness of the upcoming strategy development is rated very high.