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Firms face uncertain environments characterized by shifting demographics, disruptive technologies, new industries and competitors, and other challenges. To survive the tumultuous landscape, firm managers “make strategy” by assessing the organization's internal and external environments, questioning assumptions about how the world works and deciding how the firm should operate. We refer to this activity as “forecasting the future” and provide insights from our recent study of 394 senior managers.

We review the history of scenario planning, from military strategies to Royal Dutch/Shell's analysis of the oil crisis in 1974 and the scenario planning process. From our survey of managers, we identify the major perceived benefits and weaknesses of scenario planning, and how managers forecast the future. We identify two dimensions of forecasting – formality and breadth – and review three modes of forecasting – formal, focused and intuitive – and compare to complexity and costs of formal scenario planning. We conclude with key learning points from our survey.

When making strategy through scenario planning and forecasting methods, managers need to: examine the validity of current market assumptions used to guide forecasting efforts; involve key stakeholders in a debate about and assessment of these assumptions; update strategic plans with forecasting process outcomes; and regularly review key hypotheses about market events and their performance impacts.

Senior managers must understand the biases in managerial forecasting behavior and to work with these, to support a mix of forecasting behaviors in an organization, to deliberately allocate forecasting resources to cover environmental sectors, to selectively use managers external to the organization, to utilize a variety of sources, and to align forecasting activities with the organizational strategy process.

The paper presents a succinct summary of existing research, including findings from the authors' recent research, for both researchers and practising managers.

The purpose of the article is to share insights, based on recent management research, into how organizations can learn from their own failure and the failure of others.

The article draws on recent management research and derives key messages and insights into how organizations can learn from failure.

There are five key findings to effectively learn from failure: share information, engage in “problemistic search”, learn vicariously, facilitate team learning, and establish a learning process.

CEOs and strategy teams will gain insights into how organizations can learn from their own failures and the failures of others.

Provides guidance on how to establish a deliberate process to derive insights from internal and external failures.

Based on a review of recent leading management research on the theme of organization learning. The BP example, use of the CAIB report, the analysis and generation of key implications, and the guidance points to “How to avoid failing to learn” are original.

This paper aims to explore the internal processes that can enable firms to identify and effectively respond to brand crises, with various groups coordinating and cooperating with each other, and also propose a guiding framework relevant for both managers and researchers.

A grounded theory methodology was adopted. Data collection included open-ended interviews with 13 executives representing the integrated marketing communications (IMC) function, the integrated corporate communications function and external agencies supporting firms while navigating crises.

Results revealed a three-stage process of internal coordination efforts during crises: sensing or scanning the environment and gathering insights regarding crises, informing or disseminating these insights throughout the organization to create transparency and responding or reacting to the event via a coordinated effort.

The framework does not directly incorporate input from consumers or customer contact employees, both of which may be relevant.

Findings offer direction for managers to establish processes that prepare for and potentially reduce crises’ negative consequences. In addition, this study reveals the importance of decision-makers being vigilant regarding social media’s influence on such a process.

The conceptual framework moves beyond previous brand crisis research, provides insight into the processes firms use to successfully manage crises and reveals the relevant factors related to internal coordination.