Financial Mail: 4 May 2007

A new R200m partnership to inject fuel into the growth strategies of SA businesses has been formed by business and technology think-tank FutureWorld and Deloitte Consulting in Southern Africa.

"This formalises a long-standing partnership to help CEOs and executive management teams understand, design and create their future," says FutureWorld International CEO Wolfgang Grulke.

FutureWorld and Deloitte have already helped companies around the world to create more than 150 new businesses in the past 10 years. "We do strategy differently," says Deloitte Consulting MD Louis Geeringh. "Instead of planning incrementally, asking the traditional questions such as who the competitors are and what market share to go for, we start with what the environment will look like in the future.

"Then we ask who the winners and losers in that future will be, and then what our clients' businesses should look like if they want to be successful."

Grulke started FutureWorld in SA 20 years ago and the company's operations once prompted the FM to refer to it as a secret society - the company has no employees and no office address. It's a virtual organisation that relies on a network of independent "gurus" to help companies better understand the future.

The premise is simple: FutureWorld observes trends (from climate change to China, nanotechnology and telecommunications) that will shape businesses, industries and markets. It distils these into digestible business messages and communicates these with its clients through lectures, workshops and consulting.

With this understanding about how future events could affect their businesses, companies are better placed to develop and implement growth strategies. Deloitte then steps in and helps clients execute these strategies.

The partnership between Deloitte and FutureWorld will be managed jointly by Neil Jacobsohn, CEO of FutureWorld SA, and Thiru Pillay, head of strategy and innovation at Deloitte Consulting.

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