Amid global uncertainty, any strategic move will carry greater risks. But organizations can move forward with more confidence in their decisions—with scenario planning.
From IT choices to navigating the shifting supply chain, executives will need to prepare for a range of possible outcomes with “short, medium, and long-term macro scenarios for the impact of the COVID pandemic (Forbes).
Scenario planning can help your organization identify and focus on critical factors without getting distracted by extraneous data. Ultimately, what “what-if” scenarios offer at this moment is a way to directly address uncertainty without acting on assumptions or fear.
“Whether evaluating and projecting financial earnings, estimating cash flow and liquidity, or developing a range of mitigating actions, scenario analysis . . . is an integrated approach that can assist enterprise-wide efforts in dealing with uncertainty.”
Building scenarios starts with your questions, usually in the form of “What if?” What if I need to delay or move up select investments or initiatives? What if we reduce our resources? What if we relocate resources? Right now, your “what if” questions will be numerous, and your scenario planning tools must be able to address them all.
A few key principles will be crucial to creating scenarios that bring value, confidence, and real options.
- Scenario Planning Must Include Action
- Scenarios Must Be Built from Data
- Scenarios Must Answer Your Organizations Questions
- Scenarios Must Prepare for Return to Normalcy
Download the full white paper, “Meeting Global Challenges with Powerful What-If Scenario Planning” to read more about how Scenario Planning can help meet future uncertainties with confidence, and find many other resources on the ProSymmetry website.
Abstract: Amid the current global pandemic crisis, organizations are looking for ways to manage, adapt, and look ahead to recovery. Uncertainty makes creating a rapid and informed response plan particularly challenging, but by leveraging resources, organizations can create strategic options for responding to any number of contingencies, changes, or developments. This white paper reviews emerging research into trends and ways forward for multiple industries and outlines how scenario planning can provide answers to pressing “what if” questions that executives need to move forward through uncertainty with confidence.
ProSymmetry was founded in 2007 by passionate resource management experts. Since then, we have continually strived to solve the resource management challenges that slow down, damage, and overwhelm organizations. We do this through our flagship product, Tempus Resource, the premier resource portfolio management platform used by the world’s leading companies and labeled a “resource management solution accessible to the masses” and was awarded the 2016 Cool Vendor by Gartner.
