The Foundation is part of The Horizons Network – a team of companies run by their principals and focussed on transferring real skills that deal with real day to day problems.
Team members specialise in organisational change, strategic thinking, customer service, small and medium enterprise business development and the management of strategic marketing and research projects which are linked to values, creativity and geographic catchment analysis.
Research
We offer a full range of research services – both qualitative and quantitative. We seek to uncover the clues of what is actually going on, look at what we don’t know rather than what we do, put together the pieces, test them, examine them and finally come up with a picture of what is really happening – what is driving the situation. In some respects, that makes us more akin to market investigators than market researchers.
We offer a real insight into people’s current and future states of mind with proven systems of understanding the mind of the market such as ColourGrid(TM), as well as a raft of innovative and accurate analytical and exploratory research techniques to draw on. Most importantly, we have the experience of having analysed the responses of millions of quantitative respondents and conducted thousands of focus groups and indepth interviews using these techniques.
Consulting
The Foundation offers a unique management and marketing consulting service which helps organisations make the shift from managing today’s problems to leading their organisations into the future.
We ask the questions to get new answers, to teach new ways of thinking and explore new business opportunities. We do the homework necessary to answer the questions which create market leaders.
Futures
The world of business has changed radically in the past decade. Many organisations have been forced to rethink their traditional assumptions in the face of ever increasing waves of change.
The rules which traditionally determined excellence, survival and failure are being rewritten in most industries. Tragically for some companies, success in the past is becoming a poor predictor of success in the future.
The future is a problem for every business. All responsible managers see the continued existence of their organisation as a prime management task.
None of us can really know all that the future holds, however good our forecasts, however carefully we lay our plans, there still remains the thousand and one things which we are unable to predict.
Confucius once was asked for a statement that was both a blessing and a curse. He replied :
“May you live in interesting times.”
There is little doubt that as we move towards the second milenium we do indeed “live in interesting times”. However, no chief executive need throw up his hands and say that as he cannot foresee every event that will happen, he should not spend his time thinking of the future.
The Foundation was established to share the task of formulating responses to the challenges presented by the future – putting in place mechanisms to deal with the turbulance and capitalise on the opportunites. Helping companies take control of their own future by being pro-active in dealing with change.
To be effectively “pro-active” and be in the position to select a preferred future rather than respond to the curse of “interesting times”, requires a new approach to strategic planning at all levels of the organisation.
Becoming future oriented does not mean attaching a compass to a crystal ball. It requires a comprehension of the fact that today’s aspirations will inevitably point to tommorrow’s Australia.
Put simply the combined forces of people’s current hopes, dreams and fears will be the major determinate of the future.
The Foundation offers a unique management and marketing consulting service which helps organisations make the shift from managing today’s problems to leading their organisations into the future.
We ask the questions to get new answers, to teach new ways of thinking and explore new business opportunities. We do the homework necessary to answer the questions which create market leaders.
The Foundation offers a real insight into people’s current and future states of mind. It has a proven system of managing change to create tommorrow’s leaders – people and organisations which will dominate the twenty-first century.
We seek to:
- create a strategic framework based on a firm understanding of the aspects of human behaviour that change very little and very slowly, such as philosophy, values and national culture.
- release the constraints of “more of the same” thinking and adopt innovative “something different” approaches based on Third Wave perspectives
- focus the development potential of entrepreneurial organisations
We approach the management of change from two complimentary directions.
- We keep close tabs on the little things that are changing substantially and quickly to weed out the fads and spot the trends.
- We retain the long-term, international perspective on “Values” – the things which change little and slowly.
The Foundation helps clients manage change by concentrating on the things which remain the same rather than the thousands of little things which are different.
We do not predict the future, no one can with any degree of accuracy. But through developing an understanding the forces which influence the future, building a solid strategic framework around the elements which are consistent, and creating systems which are responsive to and predictive of change, the future become managable.
In today’s markets achieving maximum effect for your business requires the combination of marketing, research and brilliant communication programmes.
Tommorrow’s markets need innovators, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs with the drive to provide genuine market leadership.
Market leadership will only come to those organisations with a firm vision of the future. We give you our vision for the future so that you can develop your own vision of the future.
The Foundation specialises in the future – understanding the “know-how” and the “know-why” of new product development, organisational innovation, future oriented marketing strategies, internal and external communications, corporate planning and market research.
We can not only provide you with solutions to today’s marketing and management problems but also, importantly, position your organisation for market leadership in the future.
We are pleased to offer high quality research, marketing and homework that contribute to the BIG IDEAS that will stand the test of time.
