Scenario and Alternative Futures

Organizations define their vision through strategic planning that helps identify their goals and objectives and strategies to achieve them within the desired framework. Planning for the future is a business best practice to remain relevant and sustainable. However, future planning needs an understanding of the potential situation, which can be accomplished through scenario frameworks that help organizations prepare for various alternative futures. Scenario frameworks provide organizational leaders with plans, budgets, and predictions to prepare the business for growth and the potential effects of future events. This paper provides a synthesis of various scenario frameworks and the application of a scenario framework to a pharmaceutical industry case study.

Part 1: Scenario Synthesis

Framework Main Idea	Day & Schoemaker, (2020)	Godet & Roubelat, (2003)	Hussain et al., (2017)	Ramirez et al. (2017)	Your Synthesis
A. Changes and the future of organizations.	Unwarranted changes like new regulations, market entries, and environmental changes present new opportunities and challenges for companies	Organizations face dramatic changes, and have to respond accordingly.	Technological changes are rampant and business need technology foresight to keep a breast	Organizations experience unprecedented changes like natural disasters, disruptive innovation, economic changes, and unexpected political events.	May changes occurring in the business world are unwarranted and unpredictable, but have significant impact on organizations, their operations, and their future. Some of the unprecedented changes include new regulations, market entries, environmental changes, including natural disasters, technological changes, economic changes, and disruptive innovation
B. Change anticipation.	Companies should prepare for the future by anticipating changes.	Companies should anticipate these changes and transform the anticipation into action.	Company should adopt mapping the future of technology as an established practice.	Organization should explore sources of the changes or uncertainty rather than focusing on preparing for the future.	An organization’s strategic planning includes preparing for the future. Companies can prepare for the future by anticipating changes by mapping underlying causes and potential impacts. Notably, exploring the sources of these changes can help companies cope with the uncertainties.
C. Importance of future surveillance and prediction.	Periphery surveillance is a critical business success factor	Good forecasts can help arrive at the desired objective.	Technology foresight helps businesses plan for the future of technology.		Periphery surveillance or forecasting the future as accurately as possible is a critical business success factor. Business should have a foresight attitude as part of the strategic planning process.
D. Predicting the future and its challenges.	The future is hard to predict, but possible with a scenario planning	It is impossible to foretell or forecast the future due to the many uncertainties, which can only be reduced as far as possible		Companies should learn to cope with uncertainties rather than focusing on planning for the future.	It is impossible and difficult to predict the future or foretell what will happen due to the multiple uncertainties. Business can reduce the uncertainties as far as possible or learn to cope with them rather than investing everything planning for the future.
E. Scenario frameworks.	A question-based framework can help survey the periphery more effectively and efficiently	Structural analysis, strategy analysis, and morphological methods or probability can help appropriate the anticipation into action.	Companies can adopt scenario-driven road mapping to plan for the future of technology.	Scenario planning can help companies reshape their long-term strategies.	There are multiple ways a business can anticipate changes and change the anticipation into action, including the question-based framework, structural analysis, strategy analysis, and morphological methods or probability, scenario-driven road mapping, or scenario planning.

Part 2: Scenario Framework for Pharmaceutical Industry

Scenario Framework

Scenario planning or development is an integral part of an organization or industry’s future and begins with assessing the current situation, creating informed assumptions regarding the future, and comparing potential effects and the likely responses of various factors. For instance, over time, there have been predictions about when crude oil would no longer be available. Most predictions are based on scenarios, although they have been widely wrong. The pharmaceutical industry segment, Kenedy (2021, 32541a), involves Brand-name Pharmaceutical Manufacturing based in the US and faces a near future patent protection situation because most essential patents for blockbuster drugs will expire in the next five years (Khaustovich, 2023). Often, the patent’s lifespan is 20 years, and it cannot be renewed, remaining in the public domain after expiring. Therefore, organizations have to prepare for these situations. Scenario planning can provide the company with actionable insights o what to do or expect at the end of the five years. The company needs a 5-year scenario development, which can be achieved using the question-based framework (Day & Schoemaker, 2020).

The Question-based framework is desirable and suitable because it provides insights into how the company can capitalize on the situation or the changes in the industry, including increased competition and economic and global market changes. Looking at the current trend and scenarios, the company can anticipate what is to happen and develop a strategic plan to prepare for the future with clear goals and objectives (Day & Schoemaker, 2020). The question-based framework can help the company survey the periphery more efficiently and effectively. It has three parts: learning from the past, examining the present, and envisioning the future. The organization asks itself multiple questions: What were its past blind sports? What instructive analogues do other industries offer? Who in the industry can help pick up the weak signals and act on them? To learn from the past (Day & Schoemaker, 2020). The present is evaluated by asking about the vital signals the company is rationalizing, what the outliers, unconventional, defectors, and complainers are telling the company, and the peripherals consumers and competitors are thinking about (Day & Schoemaker, 2020). Envisioning the future involves asking about what could hurt or help the company, technologies that could change the game, and any unprecedented scenario that might hamper or disrupt the business. The answer to these questions will help the organization anticipate problems or opportunities appearing on the horizon.

Current State Pharma Industry Trends

Multiple pharma industry trends require pharma companies to develop strategic planning that prepares companies for the changes occurring in the future or any disruptions. For instance, artificial intelligence is accelerating drug discovery and development. Many new companies are adopting the technology to address the many pharma industry challenges, including automation to optimize business processes (Khaustovich, 2023). This technology forces current organizations to reshape their strategies to adapt to the changes. The changing market dynamics are forcing the pharma industry to consider flexible production. Minimizing downtime and enhancing productivity is necessary, and flexible production approaches like single-use bioreactors and continuous manufacturing can be valuable. Precision medicine, due to omic and data analysis advancement, is also a current trend that helps pharma researchers and experts understand more the drug interaction with the body (Hartl et al., 2021). Precision medicine means that personalized medicine is becoming more of a reality. The pharma industry will also have to develop scenarios for the future of additive manufacturing using technologies like 3D printers for tissues and cells (Mohammed et al., 2020). This technology means the development of precision pills, microfluidics, and tissue engineering. Lastly, real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE) are revolutionizing innovations in the pharma industry by intensifying research and increasing the reliability of discoveries (Breckenridge et al., 2019). Data means the industry can produce new drugs more often while maintaining reliability and real value.

Trigger Questions

According to Leufkens et al. (2022), the future of the pharma industry, including drug discovery and development and direction and success, is influenced by current and anticipated scientific advances, socioeconomic, medical need, policy, and geopolitical actors. Also, growing concerns about a global divide could also impact drug accessibility and affordability (Leufkens et al., 2022). Also, it is unclear whether the pharma industry will be more regulated, monitored and guided in the future and whether international and interdisciplinary collaboration and connectivity will affect the operation of the pharma industry. Based on the supported understanding, the executive team should ask itself the following questions:

What scientific advances will realign or impact unwarranted, challenging opportunities relating to drug discovery and development in the future?
What socio-economic, medical need, policy, and geopolitical actors will impact our direction and success?
What if the growing concern regarding the global divide impacts accessibility and affordability or medicines?
What if the future will be more complex with more need for monitoring and guidance in the operations of the pharma industry?
Will international and interdisciplinary collaboration and the increased connectivity advance pharmaceutical science?

Conclusion

Strategic planning is integral to a business’s future and sustainability. It can be accomplished through scenario planning, which involves scenario building using past and current events and trends leading to a likely future. Scenario frameworks provide organizations with insights into alternative futures for planning and try to reduce uncertainties as far as possible. An organization can adopt the question-based framework that focuses on learning from the past, evaluating the present, and envisioning the future.

References

Breckenridge, A. M., Breckenridge, R. A., & Peck, C. C. (2019). Report on the current status of the use of real‐world data (RWD) and real‐world evidence (RWE) in drug development and regulation. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 85(9), 1874-1877.

Day, G. S., & Schoemaker, P. J. H. (2005). Scanning the periphery. Harvard Business Review, 83(18), 135–148.

Godet, M., & Roubelat, F. (1996). Creating the future: The use and misuse of scenarios. Long Range Planning, 29(2), 164–171.

Hartl, D., de Luca, V., Kostikova, A., Laramie, J., Kennedy, S., Ferrero, E., … & Roth, A. (2021). Translational precision medicine: an industry perspective. Journal of translational medicine, 19(1), 1-14.

Hussain, M., Tapinos, E., & Knight, L. (2017). Scenario-driven road mapping for technology foresight. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 124, 160–177.

Khaustovich, V. (2023). Industry Report 32541A: Brand Name Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in the US. IBISWorld.

Krishnaveni, C., Arvapalli, S., & Sharma, J. V. C. (2019). Artificial intelligence in pharma industry-a review. International Journal of Innovative Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, 7(10), 37-50.

Leufkens, H. G., Kusynová, Z., Aitken, M., Hoekman, J., Stolk, P., Klein, K., & Mantel-Teeuwisse, A. K. (2022). Four scenarios for the future of medicines and social policy in 2030. Drug Discovery Today, 27(8), 2252-2260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2022.03.018

Mohammed, A., Elshaer, A., Sareh, P., Elsayed, M., & Hassanin, H. (2020). Additive manufacturing technologies for drug delivery applications. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 580, 119245.

Ramirez, R., Churchhouse, S., Palermo, A., & Hoffmann, J. (2017). Using scenario planning to reshape strategy. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(4), 31–37.

Scenario and Alternative Futures