This book engages the reader around different perspectives between forecasting and foresight in strategic design, drawing insights derived from a futures study that can be applied in form of a design-inspired foresight approach for designers and interdisciplinary innovation teams increasingly called upon to help envisage preferable futures. Demonstrating this process in applied research, the book describes a 2016 Financial Services industry futures study to the year 2030. An industry increasingly at risk in dealing with uncertainty, the Financial Services sector, is a core pillar of economic activity in most markets, such as greater China, and inherent within are major drivers of change linked to consumer behaviors, new technology and disruptive business models. While the financial services industry exemplifies an ideal case for design-inspired foresight, the aims of this book are primarily to establish the peculiarities between traditional forecasting applications and a design-inspired foresight visioning approach as strategic design activities for selecting preferable futures. Underlining the contribution of this book is the value of design futures thinking as a creative and divergent thought process, which has the potential to respond to the much broader organizational reforms needed to sustain in today’s rapidly evolving business environment.
