Strategic Alliance Magazine Q2 2017 - 9

Imagine That!
You Can't Predict What's Coming-
But You Can Prepare for Unexpected Scenarios

Front

By Michael Leonetti, CSAP

I certainly didn't plan this scenario-days of re-

lentless rains in "sunny San Diego." But once-in-a-century
weather sure is an apropos setup for the ASAP Leadership
Forum. On the last day of February, opening day of the
2017 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, as floodwaters crest
on the San Diego River, our discussion leader Matt Ranen
projects an acetate slide from 1979. This almost 40-yearold overhead transparency (do your kids or grandkids
even know what that is anymore?) contains IBM's robust
prediction of growth in the personal computer market in
the 1980s: 295,000 PCs. Actual sales: 25 million.
"They had the right data, but what they really lacked was
imagination," says Ranen, a strategy consultant who is
leading our diverse group of alliance leaders through an
abbreviated business scenario planning exercise. "Why
are we so bad at making sense of the future?" he asks.
"We're biased, with almost religious beliefs. We can't
imagine someone would act in a certain way. We're often talking to people like us, who think similarly. We're
in denial. We have limited creativity and imagination. ...
It's complex. We focus on single trends, one at a time, but
trends don't move on their own, they interact in a system.
While it's really important to look at things holistically,
our brains can't handle more than five to six things at a
time. We use the wrong tools, because we seek precise
quantitative forecasts."
So how do you forecast what's coming next? Our cover story delves into the fateful convergence of genomics, where
partnering must keep pace with technology advancing far
faster than Moore's Law. Your company already may be
partnering with gene sequencing leader Illumina-whether you work in high-tech, life sciences, or even insurance.
Would you have predicted that even a couple of years ago?
Can you imagine how gene editing is about to impact
medical practice?
What about cognitive computing? Are you not just a little
mesmerized when you see a TV commercial promoting
H&R Block, a tax preparer, working with IBM Watson?

(Watson and Illumina are also
partnered.) Then there's the
Cloud-which holds Illumina's gargantuan volumes of sequencing data and profoundly disrupts the industry that's
digitally transforming every other industry. And how will
you-no matter your industry-partner in the Internet of
Things ecosystem? (Cloud, IoT, and transformation are
critical topics at our June 7 ASAP Tech Partner Forum in
Santa Clara, Calif.)
In our Leadership Forum, Ranen proposes that scenario
planning can help us explore future risks and opportunities, while developing skills that prepare us for anything
that comes at our organizations and partnerships. That
may seem like the job of strategy (I'm reminded of a longtime alliance management colleague's famous quip-"we
don't do strategy, we do plans"). But today, I'm entirely
convinced that alliance teams should spend time looking at
critical business inflection points-variables ranging from
product issues and new innovations to climate change. If
value creation, innovation, and speed are top partnering
priorities, then mitigating risk also is an essential complement. Put differently, if you want to create value, you'd
better be aware of the next disruptions that are coming.
Ranen breaks us into groups to explore scenarios-e.g.,
impacts of the "sharing economy." Our task is to synthesize
diverse perspectives, take the long view (three, five, 10, or
more years), and communicate our scenarios memorably.
It's a rather challenging exercise, even for this very bright
group, which underscores both the difficulty and the value
of building scenario exploration into your alliance planning processes.
"There's no data about the future," Ranen reminds us.
But scenarios can help to refresh our thinking, invigorate
our planning, and prepare our organizations for an uncertain future. "Once developed, scenarios become more
powerful over time," he says. "We start to see the world
differently, and stop dismissing data that doesn't match
our world view." n
Q2 * 2017 | STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Q2 2017