In order to position their country and its industries as global aviation competitors, the Civil Aviation Authority and Transportation Ministry of a key Asian nation enlisted the help of Toffler Associates. The nation's leaders understood the importance of being prepared for a host of new challenges and opportunities in the coming years, and wanted to plan strategically to be out ahead of other nations in the region and around the world.
FUTURE STRATEGIES
The Toffler Associates team began by mining recent research on passenger numbers, cargo flows, and a range of airline and travel trends. Toffler Associates recognized that the main concern the nation faced was how ensure its airports, airlines, and air-travel-related service industries will be relevant in the coming years as aviation routes and channels changed and as they confront issues including:
Emerging Competitors Environmental Concerns
Political Instability and Terrorism
Advances in Technology
Illness and Disease Spread
Toffler Associates then developed a custom strategy for the nation's government and aviation industries by outlining a series of detailed scenarios and identifying what actions (investments, R&D, business moves, policy changes, etc) would produce desired results in each. This method is at the center of Toffler Associates' approach to strategy, enabling clients to better envision a range of potential market changes in the future and therefore inform critical decisions.
The Toffler Engagement Leader on the project explained: "These scenarios - we call them "alternate futures" - incorporate a high-level of detail, down to envisioning how the demographics could shift, and how people's leisure-time preferences might change, and how things like that will transform passenger and cargo makeup. This gives the client a much clearer understanding of the many possibilities and avenues for change as they seek to establish their nation and their aviation industries as leaders in global travel and transportation."
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE-A NEW DIRECTION
The "alternate future" scenarios fed into a series of interactive planning sessions with high-level leaders and officials. Select areas of focus included:
Alternate Business Models - how to create new models that used market forces to aid the national economy while creating opportunities for aviation
New Incentive Structures - how to stimulate aviation traffic and related spin-off jobs
Regulations and Safety - how to balance regulations and safety with new economic and social dynamics
Environmental Concerns - how to prepare for aviation's role in an environmental crisis or pandemic outbreak
Cultural Shifts - how the growth and movement of ethnic and religious groups might affect how aviation is conducted
ENVISIONING THE FUTURE, DRIVING ACTION
Toffler Associates' unique scenario development technique and their use of the scenarios to inform strategy took the client's planning to a higher level. By going beyond linear projection from historical quantitative data, this nation's aviation leaders were able not only to consider possibilities they had not con-ceived of before, but also to strengthen the abilities of the people who will bring those possibilities to fruition.
Knowledge 
