ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE TO BE A LEADER

January 29, 2020: First event of the Future Trends & Inspirational Mentorship with the futurist William Higham

The future consumer’s behavior and the company’s ability to anticipate their needs and expectations; the strategies that brands must implement in order to be prepared for the challenges of the market. These were the main themes of the first Future Trends & Inspirational Mentorship, a program created thanks to Beyond International’s expertise in the field of managerial consultancy and designed to immerse people in the change that’s currently taking place, with days of discussion with international experts connected via robotic telepresence.

First distinguished guest of 2020 William Higham, consumer strategist, futurist and founder of “Next Big Thing”, a company that has worked on the strategy of a wide range of national and international brands: from the BBC to HSBC, from Sainsbury’s to Siemens. A global authority for the customer-oriented innovation that combines passion and strategic inspiration with insights into the behavior of future consumers. At the heart of his analysis, backed by more than thirty thousand hours of experience on the field, William identified the exponential growth of technology in the upcoming years, which will make the world even more chaotic and stressful and will lead people to seek comfort in their protected spaces.

Focusing on this trend, he analyzed what are the factors that will be chosen by brands in the near future, what will be the target of emerging consumers and what will companies need to create new future-proof business strategies, a topic also addressed during the “Socratic lab”, the following segment of the Future Trends & Inspirational Mentorship.

Following the claim “experience is not what happens to us, but it is what we do with what happens”, the Mentorship lab focused on sharing and assimilating the information acquired during the meeting with Higham. The lab follows the line of the so-called Future Literacy, a new UNESCO’s skill for 2020, which aims to make the ability to anticipate the future a trainable competence.