Exploring competitive futures using cognitive mapping

Uncertainty over the direction and scale of change in future industry conditions is one of the most intractable problems of strategic management. Anticipating the future can be hampered by misunderstanding of the driving forces at work, their relative significance and the ability of the firm to affect them. This paper examines UK take-home drinks retailing and shows how diverse forces for change may be combined in mental maps to build credible scenarios to inform a firm's strategy. The example shows the dangers of accepting conventional wisdom, the importance of including in scenarios the responses of participating firms, and the potential to discover promising strategies in apparently unattractive competitive conditions.