IMD Future Readiness Indicator - A Guide to Business Success

The Future Readiness Indicator

What does it mean to be future–ready?

The more uncertain the world seems to be, the more important it is for companies to engage in future-proofing. This is because corporate success depends on one’s preparedness for future disruptions; therefore, future readiness is a source of resilience for companies.

Our Future Readiness Indicator is designed to measure a company’s readiness for deep, long-term, secular trends. We use a rule-based methodology to arrive at a composite score for each company, enabling us to identify industry leaders. We can then investigate the behaviors and attitudes of specific companies.

Our latest Future Readiness Indicator includes six industries:

Consumer Packaged Goods

Remote Daily #272 – with Howard Yu

Professor Howard Yu breaks down the Future Readiness Indicator in this ‘Remote Daily’ podcast: Unveiling crucial strategies to become future-ready.

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Top Press Highlights

Key Insights from the Future Readiness Indicator

It’s hard not to be worried when confronted with surging inflation, energy crisis, supply chain disruption, and geopolitical decoupling. But smart companies don’t simply curtail corporate development. They don’t blindly scale back every innovation during tough times. Instead, they prioritize; they choose. Being future-ready means delivering today and winning tomorrow.

Companies that are the most future ready

We’ve ranked 68 of the world’s top revenue-generating companies in finance, automotive, and consumer packaged goods, based on their ability to anticipate future challenges and limit current risk exposure, using our Future Readiness Indicator. See how Tesla, BYD, and VW are redrawing the lines in the automotive sector. Witness how Coca-Cola, P&G, and L’Oréal are leveraging AI to innovate and captivate consumers. And observe how Mastercard, Visa, and JPMorgan Chase are pioneering the finance world.

Research methodology

Within each industry, highly ranked companies repeatedly reinvent themselves. They redefine how to design and manufacture their products, or they reimagine how to deliver their services.

More about our research methods on building the Indicator and on A.I. powered text analysis.

Concept of LEAP

Future-ready organizations “leap” repeatedly. They have leaped from their historic areas of expertise to new knowledge: they are outward-looking; they are curious; they assimilate new concepts from other industries. You can learn more about the concept of leaping by clicking here.

How future-ready companies can weather the downturn

Companies that are future-ready demonstrate market resilience and are “recession-proof” in difficult economic times. This was the key takeaway from our latest Future Readiness Indicator 2022 report.

How Coca-Cola refreshed itself in the face of changing tastes

Unpredictability in the marketplace can quickly burst the bubble of any company not agile enough to adapt to change. Here’s what you can learn from the soda pop giant’s successful mission to update and diversify its product range.

Two xbox controllers in front of an iphone showing the Activision and Blizzard logos on the screen

What We Can Learn About Strategy from Xbox in the Gaming Industry

Explore how Microsoft’s strategic self-disruption in the video game industry transcends traditional models, reinventing Xbox from a device-service business to a technology-content platform. Discover the innovative rationale behind the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The Cost of Stubbornness: Parallels Between Warfare and Business

The escalation of commitment in futile wars parallels business and investment decisions, often leading to extended losses. Cognitive intervention and pre-set exit strategies can prevent such detrimental persistence.

Coca-Cola’s Unexpected Mix

It’s shocking to see Coca-Cola making an appearance in the alcohol section of the grocery aisles. For more than 100 years, it has stayed away from alcohol, never allowing an association with any booze. It’s been as much a branding choice as a decision for the sanity of its supply chain.

Can We Ever Break The Iphone Monopoly?

Apple has built a strong stable of services, all pushing towards iPhones and Mac computers. It is rock solid monopoly pushing prices up above what is reasonable.

Why ChatGPT won’t crash and burn like IBM Watson

Not a day goes by without someone judging the performance of ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is not ready yet.

The Big Deal Of mRNA Technology After The Covid Vaccine In 2023

People might know mRNA technology because it’s used to make the Covid vaccine possible. But this is also a new way to discover drugs.

How We Determine if a Business is Future-Ready?

The future is now. It’s not just about what you did last week or how your team performed in the past quarter, it’s all preparation for tomorrow – and that starts with being prepared today!

This Is How Roblox Beats Facebook in the Race For the Metaverse

While Facebook is busy developing technology for the future, Roblox is building an entire platform that is ready for it. Find out how they’re doing it and why they’ll win.

Why Tesla and BYD are ahead of the Rest

Unlike big carmakers who hedged their bets, these pure-electric plays have benefited from venturing into areas others shunned.

Carmakers’ Next Battle

This Is How NIO and BYD Become the Next Tesla.

The Perils of Self-Reliance

Intel Can’t Even Grow Profits During a Global Chip Shortage.

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Key Insights from the Future Readiness Indicator