Burt Nanus

QUEST—Quick Environmental Scanning Technique

Abstract This paper describes a new technique designed to scan the environment quickly and inexpensively to focus managements attention upon critical issues for strategy formulation. The technique has been applied successfully in several different corporate settings including a major savings and loan association, three divisions of a large food manufacturing firm and a medium-sized moving and storage company.

In quest of strategic planning

Although it may not be possible to predict the future, you can make estimates of the likelihood of future events and determine strategies for dealing with those events. In this way, strategic planning becomes a guide for the future, rather than a straitjacket imposed by the past

Developing strategies for the information society

Abstract Much has been written about the coming Information Society and the possible benefits and problems that could accompany its evolution. However, there is no grand design for the Information Society. Its general shape, speed, and direction are being shaped by a wide variety of forces, only some of which are technological. However, an argument can be made that the lack of a coherent strategy for the evolution of the Information Society may prove dysfunctional in the long run, because it results in ambiguity, confusion, waste, and lost opportunity in both the public and private sectors. In fact, there are many strategic choices that could be taken today which would help shape the future Information Society so as to improve the prospects for overall societal benefits. Five strategic choices in the public sector and five in the private sector are offered as examples of the kinds of actions that would appear to be appropriate today to lay the groundwork for the successful evolution of the Information Soc...

Interdisciplinary policy analysis in economic forecasting

Abstract Economic policy formulation suffers from many ills, not the least of which is a basic inadequacy in the methods of long-range economic forecasting. This article discusses the need for a longer time perspective in economic policy and the shortcomings of current methods in regard to philosophical assumptions, theoretical limitations, economic modeling problems, and institutional issues. Interdisciplinary policy modeling is suggested as a partial solution to these shortcomings, and two examples are offered—one in regional policy simulation and other in world food-supply modeling.

Management training in futures concepts

Abstract There is a growing interest among practising managers in the concepts and applications of technology assessment and futures research, reflected in the thousands of courses, workshops, and seminars in these subjects being offered to middle and upper managers by universities, professional organisations and consultants. The author examines a few of the problems involved in such training, discusses the methods available to solve them, and illustrates the use of two specific techniques-the in-basket and futures-case-study approaches.

A general model for criminal justice planning

Criminal justice agencies have fallen under harsh criticism for their seeming inability to expand and adapt at a rate commensurate with the accelerated growth of crime. A general planning model for criminal justice agencies is suggested to help effect the establishment of orderly, systematic, and continuous processes of setting objectives, anticipating the future and bringing these anticipations to bear on critical present decisions.

The social implications of the use of computers across national boundaries

Large time sharing systems and distributed networks of computers are already major factors in tying together decentralized national operations in both the public and the private sectors. In the public sector, the marriage of computers and communications is apparent in such systems as the ARPA Network, the Air Defense System, law enforcement systems, weather forecasting and the like. In the private sector, there are many such systems used for tying together sales offices and warehouses or ticket offices and data banks of reservations systems, as well as serving various other scheduling, financial control or logistics operations in large corporations. In fact, discussions on the design and development of massive national or regional information utilities have been appearing with increasing frequency of late.

Forecast for Leisure.

(1973). Forecast for Leisure. Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation: Vol. 44, Including Leisure Today, pp. 61-61.

Future-Oriented Business Education

Business education in the United States is designed to conform to a set of assumptions about industrial needs and teaching approach that may no longer be appropriate. A major re-orientation for business schools that would make them more student-oriented and more concerned with current and future industrial trends is recommended.

Futures research—stage three

Abstract Futures research now seems poised on a plateau to move into the third stage of its development—that of institutional design. The first two stages, the development of concepts and the raising of futures consciousness, have not resulted in any tangible improvements to the policymaking process as a means of improving the human condition. If stage three is to achieve this it must develop tools and concepts of increasingly practical value.