Horizons

Helping clients think clearly and strategically about possible futures

About us

Any project we undertake provides clients with a rich understanding of the drivers of change affecting their organisation in order to provide clarity about their goals and priorities. Our typical approach combines elements of horizon scanning, scenario construction and stakeholder immersion bringing possible futures into focus in order to define strategic direction.

We have considerable experience in developing and delivering strategic thinking projects. Our projects are able to draw on global resources from across Ipsos; we have a growing network of analysts and facilitators skilled in strategic thinking; a wide variety of expertise across public, private and voluntary sectors; and rich and robust data from our work in advertising, marketing, reputation and social research which we use to inform our projects.

What we offer:

• Strategy & Vision: Using a range of possible futures to think through, develop and refine shared strategic vision.

• Ideation: A scenario-based design approach to identify improvement opportunities from products and services to communications and policy.

• Provocation: Futures-focused analysis to challenge assumption and spark ideas.

Some examples of our work

Strategy & Vision

• Strategic Planning for Department of Culture, Media and Sport (2010)
  We developed a set of scenarios describing a range of possible futures for culture, media, and sport to assist internal strategic planning through a senior stakeholder workshop.  

• Anticipating public responses to Pandemic Flu for Department of Health (2008)
  Using immersive, multi-media scenarios for large scale public engagement to inform preparation of UK Government’s national pandemic influenza framework.

Ideation

• SME product and service development for Royal Bank of Scotland (2010)
  We built scenarios to understand a range of possible futures for the consumer and B2B marketplace over the next ten years and used the scenarios to brainstorm and develop product and service opportunities for SMEs.

• Ideation workshops for Orange and T-Mobile (2008)
  Small scale workshops that built on horizon scanning, trend and driver analysis to identify emerging opportunity areas in order to develop new product offerings.

Provocation

• The Sigma Scan for the Horizon Scanning Centre (2005-9)
  Ipsos MORI worked with a range of partners (Outsights, Imperial College, Institute for the Future and Demos) to contribute to the Scan. In the process we developed a systematic horizon scanning methodology used by UK Government.

• The Future of Leadership for the Cabinet Office (2007)
  A discussion paper looking at the future of leadership for the senior civil service including a decision-making framework for leaders to assess and respond to a range of possible futures.

Contact Chris Perry for more information.