Trend Mapping

There are dozens of trends out there that seem to be relevant to you - however, their relevance on your business today may vary, depending your area of business but also the trends maturity and business impact. Use trend mapping to navigate trends better by assessing their overall importance. It helps you visualize and evaluate your trends better by assessing the two dimensions:

‍Trend Maturity describes the time to impact on your industry:

• Industry: very mature, 0-1 year until impact
• Mainstream:  medium mature, 1-3 years until impact
• Fringe: less mature, 3years+ until impact

Business impact describes the level of impact it will have on your business:

• Low: only a few units or business areas are affected
• Medium: some units or business areas are strongly affected but not all
• High: wide impact across the core business units
• Transformational: impact on the business model itself

Based on your mapping, different implications can be drawn on how to act on the trends:

• Hold: Put these trends on your watchlist. Re-evaluate after a certain amount of time to see if it developed.
• Assess: Evaluate these trends further to gain a better understanding of the trend and area of impact. Prepare yourself by proactively starting trials of how to address these trend in affected units.
• Act: Start initiatives to address these trends. Have a look at what direct competitors are doing about these trends.

Please keep in mind that this is a snapshot and it will evolve with time – revisit and update it regularly.