ABSTRACT
Over the years, and especially in recent times, executives in many sectors have found traditional investment appraisal and strategic tools to be totally inadequate. The strategic planners at Shell pioneered scenario thinking in the early 1980s in response to the Yom Kippur war (1973) and other major uncertainties influencing the price of oil. The first section in this chapter was originally written in 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis (and pre- Brexit). Given the current price of oil (around $60 per barrel), similar approaches would help hedge against future uncertainty.
Three case studies outline how local subsidiaries of multinational corporations (Polaroid Corporation, National Semiconductor and Iberdrola) used scenario thinking to change the game, relative to established models and paradigms in their industries, to extend and enhance their mandates, not only to survive the harshest of trading environments but to attract additional investment as well.
