Discussion on Weak Signals

               It is important to know that business dynamics always continue to change, and there is no constant situation to continue without any changes, which means that changes will happen every now and then. The business organizations do well, which prepares for the future by taking a proactive strategic management approach. On the other hand, the companies ignoring this important element found their selves in trouble. So, it is vital for businesses to understand that they will continue to face different changes and challenges, and if they have not worked on every aspect of it, then they may lose the advantage. The common thing followed by organizations is that they look for strong signals for their future to see aspects, which are going to make them stronger, but they ignore weak signals, which are equally important. In this report, the discussion will analyze different research articles on the topic of weak signals, like what they are, and how important they can be for business organizations to foresee a future.

Identify and discuss the key concepts in the texts

               The first research article included in this discussion is titled “Weak signals: Ansoff today” published in 2011. This article is having a detailed discussion about weak signals, and how this concept was developed and presented by Igor Ansoff. The fact of the matter is that companies rely on their strategic planning to move forward, but Ansoff had other ideas in his mind regarding future planning. He wanted to develop something, which can be used as a supplement for strategic planning. Ansoff explained that strategic planning is good enough by keeping historical trends in mind and making future course of action, but what will happen when companies will face surprises. It means that strategic planning only looks for strong signals, which are clear enough to set the future roadmap. This approach is certainly effective, but it will fail in situations, where changes are continuous with more rapid happenings. It means that strategic plan should look for responses, which can be made to continuous changes and surprises coming to their ways, and for that purpose, they need to look at weak signals so that adequate responses are made. The idea behind weak signals is that there are various unforeseen sports in the external environment, which can change quickly, and strong signals only look at megatrends, which are clear enough. So, it is vital to analyze weak signals so that better future screening is done. Ansoff asserted that weak signals are actually the information, which is based on disconnected knowledge, as well as, information coming from weak signals is not concrete, rather it is random (Holopainen and Toivonen, 2012)

               The other research articles selected for this discussion is titled as “Weak Signals and Wild Cards Leading to Transformative Disruption: A Consumer Delphi Study on the Future of e-Commerce in China”, and it was published in 2018. This article is also discussing the idea of weak signals like hoe weak signals can be used for predicting future for e-commerce in China, and how companies can develop their own course of action, on the basis of this particular analysis. It is important to understand here that companies base their decision on trends, which are common and trending in their relevant industries. There was a time when technology did not have a strong presence in business, so many changes were predictable, it was a bit easier to do strategic planning. But in the current business era, the dynamics have been transformed by the evolution and inclusion of technology, and companies have to deal with a lot of disruptive information. The business environment is constantly experiencing different changes, which are complex, uncertain, ambiguous, as well as, volatile. If a business will face any of such unexpected changes, it can lead to its failure. So, potential threats should be identified and treated accordingly. So, it is vital for companies to analyze their environment with the help of weak signals, which are seeds based on change, and potential disruptions in the environment are referred to as wild cards, which were not predicted in the planning, but it suddenly came in the process. After analyzing weak signals and wild cards, this study was able to find out 27 disruptive factors (Qi and Tapio, 2018)

Describe and discuss some strong points of texts

               After reading and analyzing both research articles, it can be said that they have various strong points to discuss. Both articles have helped to understand the concept of weak signals in detail so that a reader can get a complete idea about this concept. Both articles have chosen a research path, which used relevant research methodologies so that findings are made with some reliable data analysis. In the first article, the whole discussion is revolving around the concept of weak signals, which explains each and every minor point. It allows companies to understand why weak signals are also important while doing strategic planning. It explains that strong signals will not help to deal with sudden changes and surprises in the business environment. On the other hand, the second article also discussed weak signals in detail in relation to wild cards, which helps to understand the concept more conveniently. It nicely explained the idea of disruptive information, which comes randomly, and it is hard to predict, but still, companies have to deal with it. So, if they will use weak signals in their strategic planning, they will be better prepared to deal with any unexpected changes and surprises.

Describe and discuss some weak points

               Both articles are good enough with their content, structure, as well as, research methodology, and it is hard to find out any major weak points. However, the first article regarding weak signals and Ansoff being analyzed with today’s business era, there were few weaknesses in the idea developed by Ansoff. He talked about weak signals, which should be analyzed, and made part of the strategic planning, but he was not able to provide explicit information, like how to identify sources of weak signals, and what concrete methods and tools can be used for identification of weak signals. This is the weak area of this research, and it asserts that more deep analysis is needed in this regard so that new dimensions are found for future research. Overall, both articles have presented well enough reliable information on the relevant topic of weak signals.

Personal Lessons from this reading

               It is important to mention here that whenever research articles are read and analyzed, they always happen to be useful in so many ways. You always have something to learn from these research studies. As far as my personal leaning is concerned about reading these two articles, I would say that both articles were a great learning curve for me. I had never analyzed and understood the concept of weak signals with such detail and dynamics, which was made part of these articles. Both articles helped me to explore new dimensions of strategic planning, which has always been looking at strong mega trends. This is what I also have been thinking that future planning is good enough by looking at strong trends and aspects of a business, but I never thought that weak signals with their wild cards are also critical for the success of overall planning. I have learned that business dynamics are changing at a rapid pace, and if companies have to deal with these rapid changes, then they will have to use weak signals in predicting their future so that they can deal with any future threats.

References of  Weak Signals

Holopainen, M. and Toivonen, M. (2012) 'Weak signals: Ansoff today', Futures, vol. 44, pp. 198–205.

Qi, Y. and Tapio, P. (2018) 'Weak Signals and Wild Cards Leading to Transformative Disruption: A Consumer Delphi Study on the Future of e-Commerce in China', World Futures Review, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 54–82.