I believe in strategic planning, always have. Strategic plans are roadmaps that direct a business from today to the next level. They are flexible, contain milestones, anticipate obstacles and provide alternative routes. They, along with agile, scalable, defensible business models, are essential to transporting a business from today to the next level.

But strategic plans are only as good as the assumptions that underlie the strategies. And good assumptions require that business owners and executives understand the structural problems that affect economic growth, the systemic risks that threaten another crisis, and the powerful global forces shaping the competitive environment of the future .

Unfortunately, most business owners and executives are too busy running their businesses to really research and understand the complex worlds of geopolitics, geoeconomics, systemic risk and the mega-forces shaping the future. But business owners and executives who ignore these systemic risks and mega-forces do so at their own peril, and that is where I can help.