Navigating the changing operating environment with structured foresight
2M-IT used Futures Platform to understand its operating environment
better and guide the digital transition towards a new social care and
healthcare system in Finland. The platform supported 2M-IT in establishing
structured, continuous and collaborative foresight practices within the
organisation. Moreover, it served as an effective visual and interactive tool
to communicate future changes to the top management.
2M-IT is a publicly-owned company supporting the digital and IT systems of 100,000 social
and healthcare professionals in Finland. Together with more than 300 service providers, it maintains the 1000+ information systems used in the Finnish healthcare sector. Being a publicly-owned company, 2M-IT offers services to 16 of the 21 newly created welfare regions in Finland, which are responsible for social care and healthcare in their respective regions. Riku Korhonen, Senior Strategy Advisor at 2M-IT further elaborates: “We are treated as a government agency, but legally we are a private business. However, our focus is not on making much profit since the money we earn comes from our owners, the welfare regions.”
For 2M-IT, the need for foresight first emerged when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Korhonen explains: “Our CEO asked our strategy team to develop scenarios for our previous owners (e.g.,
hospitals, healthcare municipalities) that would outline what impacts the pandemic would have
for them, what actions were needed to be undertaken by 2M-IT, and when these actions should
take place.”
After their first introduction to foresight work, the company quickly realised that foresight was not a one-time exercise, especially because there was an upcoming reform of the Finnish health sector on the horizon, where the current welfare regions would be formed. “We were expecting major changes to the healthcare system and our customer base. All our previous owners would transform into newly founded organisations representing the different welfare regions. We really needed to understand what kind of work needed to be done and what kind of skills and people were needed,” says Korhonen.
“Powerpoint has helped us during the pandemic work, but that was not ideal for foresight. We decided to use Futures Platform because of the vast amount of ready-to-read content and foresight radars on future-focused topics.”
Riku Korhonen, Senior Strategy Advisor at 2M-IT
2M-IT recognised that a structured approach to foresight was a must to find the right answers to their questions. “We needed to identify the phenomena that would impact the stakeholders in the reform, find a common language for top-level management discussions, and proactively tackle the risks that our business lines had not yet identified. To do so, we needed to look further ahead in time than anyone else. Powerpoint has helped us during the pandemic work, but that was not ideal for foresight. We decided to use Futures Platform because of the vast amount of ready-to-read content and radars on future-focused topics,” Korhonen explains.
Collecting and visualising all future-focused data in one place
In addition to the trend and scenario analyses created by Futures Platform’s futurists, 2M-IT added their own trend cards and insights into their Futures Platform account. “We wanted to store all future-related information in one place. Altogether, we created about 100 of our own
trend cards. They were, of course, not as detailed as the content on Futures Platform, but still
very useful to our organisation,” says Korhonen.
The ‘Global Megatrends’ foresight radar and an example trend card on Futures Platform
Once all the content was in place, 2M-IT’s strategy team created their first foresight radar, Welfare Region Reform, to visualise all action points related to this large project. Next, they
created a Situational Awareness radar to examine their operational environment through a wider
lens. This radar had a global focus and included insights on what governments, customers, and
other companies worldwide were doing that could impact the stakeholders of the reform.
“We continuously updated the Situational Awareness radar in light of the latest developments to
determine what we should be doing as an organisation. Trends and insights were categorised in
different sections of the foresight radar, such as customer challenges, customer needs, actions
for 2M-IT, and global phenomena,” says Korhonen.
Futures Platform radars enable collaborative foresight
To share their findings with colleagues, Korhonen’s team also embedded their Situational
Awareness foresight radar onto their company intranet. Futures Platform’s collaboration
features enabled them to collect insights from various teams across the organisation:
“We wanted to spread the word on the trends and insights we had discovered. By making the
radar accessible to every single employee of 2M-IT (750 in total), they could all view the trends
and comment on them. By doing this, we made crowdsourcing possible,” Korhonen explains.
As a following action, they facilitated a series of workshops to identify the most impactful trends for 2M-IT. The foresight radars created on Futures Platform played a central role in these workshops. In the first workshop, participants used the collaboration tools to vote on the most important phenomena. Based on the insights collected in these sessions, they discussed possible strategic actions regarding the most impactful trends on their radar. According to Korhonen, these workshops have been very well received by all of the participants.
“The feature that I personally think has been most beneficial to us is the possibility to embed the Futures Platform radars into our intranet. Instead of 4 people, we could now involve 750 people in our foresight work. That is a lot more brainpower to use!”
Riku Korhonen, Senior Strategy Advisor at 2M-IT
Communicating future changes and engaging the top management with scenarios and visual radars
Besides involving employees in their foresight work, 2M-IT’s strategy team also actively worked on getting buy-in from both top-level management and the board. Korhonen explains: “Our first Futures Platform radar was more of a project management radar. The management appreciated the visual overview of the work that needed to be done. Once we switched to using the radars for foresight purposes, we repeatedly managed to draw our management’s attention to future events before they occurred. When these events eventually happened, our management had already looked into it, leading to fewer surprises.”
An internal survey was also conducted to measure the impact of foresight on the managers’ work. “The survey asked the managers if they had a positive attitude towards the use of foresight in their work. 6 of the 7 managers answered that foresight had led to valuable input into their work. The seventh manager only recently started and did not fill out the survey, because she was not familiar with the subject yet,” Korhonen elaborates.
2M-IT’s strategy team faced some initial challenges in convincing the board of the benefits of foresight. “At first, the board didn’t fully understand what we were trying to do with foresight or why. However, everything changed when we began our scenario work, drawing upon the insights from our foresight radars. The scenarios explored the changing role of 2M-IT and the organisation’s transformation upon the completion of the Welfare Region Reform. When we delivered the final scenarios to our board, they told us that the content had suddenly become tangible and real to them,” remembers Korhonen.
To further enhance the board’s understanding and involvement in foresight, Korhonen’s
team also decided to provide them with monthly foresight updates.
“With Futures Platform’s foresight radars, we repeatedly managed to draw our management’s
attention to future events before they occurred. When these events eventually happened, our
management had already looked into it, leading to fewer surprises.”
Riku Korhonen, Senior Strategy Advisor at 2M-IT
Expanding the foresight work in and outside the organisation
Keeping up with emerging trends and doing continuous foresight can be a challenge. Using Futures Platform has helped 2M-IT to structure their foresight work effectively. “Futures Platform’s foresight radars have been very valuable in visualising our thoughts and content, and
mapping out needs and actions,” Korhonen states.
With the completion of the Welfare Region Reform, 2M-IT’s foresight work and the use of Futures Platform will naturally shift away from a reform-oriented focus. According to Korhonen,
many new plans are already in the pipeline: “We will upgrade our radars by starting to use the
custom content type functionality on Futures Platform. This will enable us to categorise our content effectively and make it even easier for people to distinguish the most relevant and
impactful phenomena for 2M-IT,” he adds.
Going forward, 2M-IT will continue to involve the entire organisation in its foresight work. Korhonen explains: “We plan to keep organising voting workshops with employees, management, and the board to identify our priorities. We also aim to keep providing our regular foresight updates and expand them to the wider organisation. Furthermore, we plan to conduct more phenomena-based scenario work to feed into our strategic planning.” To expand the use of foresight and Futures Platform, 2M-IT is also considering facilitating a foresight workshop with its top five owners - the newly created welfare regions. The objective will be to collaborate on strategic challenges and define key actions.
A final piece of advice that Riku Korhonen, Senior Strategy Advisor at 2M-IT, has for anyone
looking to create more awareness and gain buy-in on foresight is to start with something that
is going to have an impact on your organisation: “Write a narrative or scenario based on an
impactful event, like the War in Ukraine, and start actively sharing it. Talk to your colleagues
at the coffee table or during a quick chat with your manager. Engaging colleagues in conversations about foresight is crucial, as it can create opportunities for them to recognise
the value of future-forward practices.” Korhonen also emphasises the importance of listening
to feedback: “People often have very good ideas. Once they realise that you are updating the
foresight radars based on their input, they feel valued and remain invested in foresight work.”
Log in to Futures Platform to check the latest trends and developments.