Business strategies mostly founder on the same rock - that man cannot foretell the future. But you don't need a crystal ball to make more accurate predictions. The most important step is to understand the present - what's actually happening right now.
The greatest strategic blunders arise from refusing to look beyond your nose - like Detroit's car companies resolutely failing to spot, as the Japanese did, the powerful trend towards smaller cars: or IBM lagging years behind almost every trend towards smaller computers.
Expert predictors like Faith Popcorn of BrainReserve, previously mentioned in this column, base their insights on careful observation of the present, and never (as most businesses do) on extrapolating the past. Nor do the aces make wild guesses about coming years in which anything may happen, and probably will.
Faith's book, The Popcorn Report, lists ten mega-trends that are very hard to gainsay - because they are already strongly at work.. 'Cocooning' means people retreating into their homes for many things that are traditionally done outside: e.g, home shopping, which will be a major force in Britain by the Millennium..
'Fantasy adventure' can be enjoyed at home (all those video games and CD-ROM romps) or outside; e.g, virtual reality arcades in which customers can escape into three-dimensional fantasy. Then there are 'small indulgences', which are part of Body Shop's formula; attractive, affordable ways of pampering yourself.
'Egonomics' is the growing rage in marketing - fitting products to the individual customer's wants. From one aspect, this is a high-tech operation, depending on computer software which identifies specific customer groups and their wants or which allows the customers to specify exactly what features they require.
But the same objective can be accomplished with low technology. In Mongolian restaurants you select your own ingredients and sauces for fast hotplate cooking. I spotted this succulent idea only recently in Hong Kong. It was packing in the thirty-somethings: and it's already reached Godalming.
'Cashing out' is what teleworkers do when they quit the office for home. Popcorn defines this trend as 'Working men and women, questioning personal/career satisfaction and goals opt for simpler living.'. They also opt for sophisticated machines: e.g: multiple-use PCs - a third of UK homes will have these by 1998.
That alone represents a huge market. There's even wider opportunity from two of Popcorn's last five trends. These two are linked: 'downaging' (the refusal of people to get old) and 'staying alive' (the health kick). You can already see the commercial results in quite different ways - nostalgia marketing on one hand and alternative medicine on the other.
The major drug companies have concluded that, as treatment in hospitals and clinics gets more expensive, people will take increasingly to self-medication. Retail chemists look set for a prolonged bonanza - but so do purveyors of Eastern magic and medicine, from Chinese herb shops (already appearing on the retail scene) to Shiatsu massage.
I met one redundant executive whose hopeful business venture offered this therapy to uptight executives in the privacy and convenience of their office. Note how the mega-trends come together, offering people in self-employment, voluntary or not, new ways of achieving economic independence.
Shell, with its hapless attempt to sink the Brent Spar drilling platform, felt the full force of another trend: 'the vigilante consumer. 'Green' products carry a cachet, just like expensive ones. Again, Body Shop is an example: it couldn't have grown so fast without the animal protection angle. The punctureless, environmentally friendly bicycle tyres of the Green Tyre Company provide a similar model.
There's no missing, either, the force of '99 lives' (fast everything, not just food) and 'save our society' (anything from charities to recycling). Popcorn found a 99-lives business in Seattle that combines a dentist's office, an espresso bar and a massage parlour, believe if or not. It's called Espresso Dental.
All ten mega-trends are already making money for entrepreneurs. To join the ranks of the successful, emulate Popcorn. Keep your eyes and ears open, understand the trends you spot, look at what big, established firms are doing - and don't do likewise. They usually get it wrong. The idea isn't to jump on somebody else's bandwaggon. It's to create your own.
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