Strategic uncertainty about the future is always there. But when important decisions arise in an atmosphere of crisis, few organizations are in position to take the full range of future threats and opportunities into account. FSG can help you cover your bases with its Futures Decision Panel. A panel approach recognizes that such contingency planning decisions must often be addressed with limited time and resources. FSG consultants, experienced in scenarios and strategy development, help participants explore and evaluate the full impact of the unknown on your operating environment, often turning uncertainty from a liability into a strategic asset.
Problem: The client faced a decision about whether to retain a certain risk on its books in return for a substantial upfront payment, or to lay the risk off and forgo the immediate reward. The client was inclined to retain the risk and accept the payment, but did not know how to quantify downstream risk that might be embedded in the contract.
Solution: A half-day “Black Swan Panel” for this major US insurer helped them to begin framing an analytical approach to the decision, by systematically analyzing large-scale external forces – and their intersections – and confronting them with narrower industry trends, to generate a fuller understanding of the risks and opportunities inherent in each of the options. The result was a more sophisticated understanding of the stakes, as well as the identification of critical unknowns and unanswered questions for follow-up and further quantitative assessment.