Annual Review/Preview of Important Forces for Change in the Business Environment

This December 2008 issue of Scan™ Monthly provides a quick review of several topics of strategic concern that may not yet figure prominently on the radar screen of planners in large companies.

• Privacy Matters: Even young people who previously have paid little attention to privacy concerns are discovering that privacy matters.
• Exploring Niche Markets: An increasing number of companies, including some that have traditionally dealt with mass markets only, are exploring the profitability of niche markets.
• Holistic Interfaces: Holistic interfaces will address more of the user’s senses and sensations by combining a wide range of interface technologies and will be able to change and adapt depending on the application or context.
• Generational Health-Care–Resource Competition: Competition between young and old for medical and health-care resources will be an increasingly contentious issue in the health-care industry and in society at large.
• Science Endeavors: New methods of characterizing, understanding, explaining, and predicting phenomena in the world are already supplementing traditional approaches to science in some areas and could even replace traditional approaches in certain disciplines or for specific applications.
• Unconventional Energy Sources: New energy-harvesting power sources are emerging and enabling a number of promising systems with the potential to create sustainable and autonomous energy solutions.
• The Sensory Appeal: Companies in a variety of industries are currently focusing on the senses, either to draw the consumer’s attention to products and services by engaging their senses or to replicate the ability of human senses.
• Crowds and Structures in Complex Systems: The way crowds influence and behave in complex systems is attracting considerable attention, as are the structures through which the systems operate, because increasing the efficiency of such systems and minimizing the effects of their failures have become a major priority for companies and governments.

Calendar

Scan™ Abstract Meetings

Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:

• 21 January 2009 at 9:00 am
• 18 March 2009 at 9:00 am
• 20 May 2009 at 9:00 am
• 22 July 2009 at 9:00 am
• 23 September 2009 at 9:00 am
• 21 October 2009 at 9:00 am.

Please contact your SRIC-BI (now SBI) marketing representative to schedule participation in any of the Scan Abstract Meetings.