ICG Consulting provides Foresight services – as Organizer/Facilitator and as Expert – for our clients since 1998. We count Foresight as a separate kind of service – not as a part of market forecast or consulting – as it combines forecast techniques with strategic planning approach. It answers not only a question "What may be there and then?" but also gives the prospective for "How is it possible to react to?" and "What should we do to be in line with?"

Though it assumes prospecting for future our Foresight service is not the same as "market forecast", a part of Market Research service we provide. While market forecast targets mainly quantitative indicators of the market (such as market volume and value, growth rates, etc.) the Foresight operates more with qualitative vision; it’s the picture that answers questions "what, when, where and how" for the future.

Sectors/industries, countries/regions, technologies, companies and even specific "problems" may be the objects for the Foresight.

Seeing the future most probable – and most required – trends and events in a specific market or region we immediately begin to think how people and organizations may and will respond such future. This stage of the Foresight is important in three main aspects:

-  We continue to build a forecast – now for the "secondary" background (i.e. prediction for individuals and companies’ future activities) 

- We understand if such "secondary" activities may change the "fundamental" trends, and

- We prepare the "response scenarios" for our clients (based on understanding of the most "optimal" reactions)

This process may continue for few continuous cycles – providing better "immersion" to the future trends and their mutual game with individuals, companies and governments.

Note: "Primary" background is presented with some "fundamental" things such as technological or demographic trends – things that work in long-term periods and are less dependent on the reaction with individuals or companies; while "secondary" background presents the activities with individuals, companies and governments in response to the "primary" things.

Thus in general Foresight presents a series of the following steps:

- Forecast for most probable trends and events; building future alternative scenarios

- Building a strategic vision for "desirable future" (i.e. the future scenario that best fits the customer’s current strategy)

- Forecast for most probable response with people, companies and governments (knowing what they need to response to) and selection of the "optimal" response strategies for each scenario

- Making road maps for the main ("desirable") and alternative scenarios (i.e. plans that answer two main questions "what should we do to reach the desired future?" and "what should we do to be in line with the probable future?" – presenting active and passive responses to the future)

-Combining active ("building of the desirable future with own force") and passive ("being in line with the future built with others") approaches into a single strategy

Generally, Foresight identifies possible future, imagines desirable future, and defines strategy for that futures.