Foresight & Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: Practice and Theory to Build Enterprises of the Future

This book explores the importance of strategy and how to make it work in an environment characterised by constant change. With a specific focus on the Asia Pacific region, anticipated to become the epicentre of global economic activity, it offers insights into the optimisation of economic potential and social cohesion enabled by leaders, which is crucial to the global economy and living standards. It highlights sound foresight, strategic thinking and innovation as the critical underpinnings of successful business and provides a comprehensive guide to combining practice and theory to ensure successful strategies, from formulation to execution.

The book also builds on the concepts of change, the purpose of business, foresight, strategic thinking, strategic planning and innovation to present a holistic view of how these essential elements can be integrated in practice. Combined with a special contribution by Chaly Mah, the CEO of Deloitte Asia Pacific, the book carefully balances professional and academic insights to optimally benefit its readers and will be of interest to industry practitioners, researchers and students alike.

Dr Luke van der Laan is the Director of Professional Studies at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia and member of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business Development (ACSBD). With extensive board-level executive experience as a CEO, non-executive director and trustee, he describes himself as a pracademic integrating both practice and scholarly insights in his efforts to de-mystify the practice of strategy. His work in the areas of foresight, strategic thinking and leadership is internationally unique and honed by his interests in futures research. In addition to ongoing international research collaboration, he has presented seminars and keynote addresses throughout the Asia Pacific region and published widely.

Dr Janson Yap is the Regional Managing Director of the Risk Consulting Division at Deloitte (Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific). Embedding the innovation culture into the DNA of the Deloitte Southeast Asia organization is also part of his business portfolio where he also holds the title of Innovation Leader. With significant professional experience in multi-national corporations as well as having conducted advanced research into strategy implementation, his implementation evaluation techniques complete the book’s end-to-end strategy solution.