Companen · Advisory · Social housing
A management team looking to the next horizon together
A strategic AI session that took the management team beyond the operational question, to the conversation about business model and position ten years out.
Introduction
A management team wasn't asking which AI tool to buy. They were asking what AI will do to their profession in ten years. That is exactly where a good strategy session begins.
The trigger
AI felt like something that asked something of them, but the question sat at strategic level. Which developments affect our business model? Where does our position stand in a sector where clients move slowly? Without an answer to that, every ambition stalls in good intentions.
The approach
We opened with a keynote that made AI tangible in the context of their own sector. Not a generic hype talk, but a concrete picture of what is coming at an advisory firm in social housing.
In a strategic brainstorm we worked with the Three Horizons model along a series of future scenarios. The key insights came from the group itself. Several participants pointed to the same distinguishing factor: the translation between generic AI analysis and the reality of politics, governance and interests. That work isn't in the data.
We translated the scenarios into concrete next steps and planned a moment later to test them against reality. That way foresight became not a one-off session, but a rhythm the management team can keep up itself.
I think it comes down to that indispensable translation. In all four scenarios, that stays the most important thing.
What it delivered
- ✓ A shared picture of the future the whole management team stands behind
- ✓ Their own distinctive value made sharp: the translation AI doesn't take over
- ✓ The pace gap between government and business named as a strategic window, not a threat
- ✓ A return moment planned to keep testing the scenarios
