Corporate Foresight and its Role in Driving Innovation - A case study of the Swedish grocery industry and how they use corporate foresight in order to improve their innovation strategies

Abstract

The world is constantly changing with factors that we partly can control and some that are outside of our control. Living in these complex systems demands tackling but also embracing uncertainty. The focus should not be on controlling the outcomes by narrow forecasts. Instead, the aim should be to design systems, which are adaptable and robust to be prepared enough for a wider range of future possibilities. One of the industries that are on the brink of facing major challenges is the grocery industry where the future is difficult to predict. Some of these major challenges are today’s high inflation rates, which have led to increased food prices. Furthermore, grocery stores are continuously affected by the consumer's values and behaviour, technical presumptions, time, and social structures. Moreover, constant major challenges are that the grocery industry is an intensely competitive, low-margin and high-volume industry. In the last thirty years, there has been a lot of knowledge created around how to best conduct exercises regarding foresight. However, there is not much knowledge regarding how foresight should be integrated with innovation in a company. Furthermore, the grocery industry an area with potential of big amounts of innovation and change, especially since it has been a quite stagnant industry over the last century. This is why the grocery industry is interesting to look at in the aspect of corporate foresight, innovation strategies and their relationship. Therefore, we formulated this thesis research question, which is: How do companies acting in the Swedish grocery industry use corporate foresight in order to improve their innovation strategies and stay ahead of the competition? The theoretical framework of this thesis is divided into three main areas where theories regarding corporate foresight, innovation strategies and the relationship between these two concepts are presented. Our research has been conducted through a qualitative methodology with an inductive approach. The chosen research design for our research is a case study of the Swedish grocery industry. The data collection consists of semi-structured interviews with top management at three of the biggest Swedish grocery companies in terms of market shares. In order to analyse the empirical material gathered during the data collection we have used thematic analysis. Through analysing our empirical material combined with our theoretical framework we have come to the conclusion of this thesis. Our conclusion is that corporate foresight in the Swedish grocery industry is used as a tool to create a vision of what will happen going forward and through that find out what innovations that need to be developed or adopted in order to stay competitive in the future. Efficient corporate foresight can therefore contribute to improved innovation strategies and create better innovation performance in the Swedish grocery industry.