What is the "Future Concept"? The future is the business tool of tomorrow!

"Isn't thinking about the future the job of experts or science fiction writers?"
Honestly, many might feel that way. In our busy daily lives, it's only natural for our focus to be on "tomorrow's deadlines and deliveries" rather than "the world ten years from now." However, I believe that in today's world, where changes in society and markets are increasingly difficult to predict, what is truly being demanded of each and every one of us is the ability to think about the "future" – the power of conceptualization.

My apologies for the delayed introduction. I'm Akane Yamada from the Dentsu Group cross-organizational unit, Future Business Creation Lab. In June 2025, our first book, "Future Thinking Concepts: Envisioning a Post-SDGs Vision," was published. To commemorate this release, we're launching a special series.

This article explains why envisioning the future is crucial and explores how "the future" can become a vital business tool.

" Future Thinking Concepts: Shaping a Vision for the Post-SDGs Era "
Published by: Cross Media Publishing / Compiled by: Dentsu Inc. Future Business Research Institute
With the post-SDGs era approaching, and challenges often overshadowing hopes for the future, this book practically summarizes the necessity of embracing the idea that "the future is not something to be predicted, but something to be created" and the importance of envisioning "the future we want to create," exploring the relationship between business and the future.

 

By envisioning the future, we build a better society


 

Established in 2021, the Dentsu Group's cross-organizational "Future Business Creation Lab" enters its fifth year this year, having worked on numerous client projects. With inquiries increasing annually, we keenly sense the rising demand for future-oriented solutions.

We've identified three major needs emerging from these inquiries.

1. Want to know about the future
2. Want to leverage the future to conceive new businesses and ventures
3. To pursue more visionary initiatives that improve the future

By responding to these needs in a clear and engaging way, we want to help more people recognize the importance of thinking about the future and encourage change towards a better society and way of life. With this in mind, we launched a new project to publish a book based on the "Future Concept" advocated by the Future Business Research Institute.

After consulting with several publishers and discussing opportunities, we decided to publish with Cross Media Publishing, whose vision aligned with ours. The completed book , "Future Thinking Concept: Shaping a Post-SDGs Vision," is packed with tools developed by the Future Business Creation Institute, knowledge about the future, and content and frameworks for envisioning the future. We sincerely hope you will pick up a copy.

What exactly is a "Future Concept"?

The "Future Concept" advocated by the Future Business Creation Research Institute is a verbalized guideline for how to advance the necessary businesses and activities to realize the "future vision you want to create."

Positioned as a bold arrow, it indicates the direction of efforts needed from the present to reach the envisioned future. By selecting means aligned with this arrow and managing progress, we steadily advance toward realizing the "desired future vision" step by step.

Sharing the "Future Concept" within teams and across the company makes it easier to engage others and provides a decision-making framework when faced with uncertainty. Furthermore, it clarifies our purpose and contributes to creating the organization's identity. For business professionals struggling with the barriers of past conventions and precedents, it may also serve as a catalyst for breakthroughs.

The future is neither fantasy nor fortune-telling. It can become an extremely practical business tool for building tomorrow. Envisioning the future goes beyond strategic design. It also serves as the starting point for initiatives that generate empathy and action. Can you paint a future vision that becomes a driving force, engaging not only consumers but also employees, business partners, and society as a whole? In recruitment and brand selection, the question "What future does this company envision?" has become increasingly important. Organizations that can articulate their future vision are increasingly becoming the ones chosen.

This book introduces methods for creating a "desired future vision" and frameworks for deriving a "future concept."

What's Needed Before Articulating Your Future Concept

Before articulating a future concept, you must clearly define the value of the "future you want to create." You must also clarify the current state of that value: Is it entirely new and currently nonexistent? Is it being replaced by something else? Additionally, you need to confirm whether your company is currently involved in providing that value in any way.

This book explained how to use backcasting to develop specific product/service plans and business ideas that realize the vision. After generating numerous ideas and covering all possibilities, ideas are evaluated. However, the actual initiatives to pursue are selected based on specific criteria, incorporating the evaluation results. Even highly rated ideas may include both those the company should pursue and those it should not. The future concept serves as the standard for selecting the "right one" from among them. Defining a future concept grounded in your company's current position not only provides a criterion for narrowing down ideas but also links each idea to the future value at the goal, making them even more compelling.

The power to shape the future requires more than just specialized knowledge. What's crucial is the ability to formulate questions and sketch hypotheses—in other words, conceptual power.

Now that AI has become part of our daily lives, "what to envision and how to use it" depends on human imagination. Advances in generative AI and simulation technology mean anyone can now possess tools for "thinking about the future." What's needed next is the will to use them to paint a picture of "what kind of future we want to see."

A "Future Design" Method Anyone Can Use
 

It can be quite difficult to generate new ideas that leap beyond reality when working in the same environment with the same members as always. That's precisely why the Future Business Creation Lab exists. We elevate and draw out your creativity, translating it into concrete visions of the future. Our sessions are uniquely designed to generate these future visions.

We provide tools to draw your desired future vision with high resolution, as well as methods to set your future or ideal vision and then work backward to design your business.

• Future Mandala: Exploring Future Hypotheses
• Future Finder 100: Combining 100 themes to envision future societies
• "Universal 11 Desires" to imagine what future consumers will desire
• Future Time Use: Predicting future lifestyle activity times
• Future Person Generator: Utilizes generative AI to concretize future consumer personas

The future is neither something that unexpectedly arrives nor something to be predicted; it is something we "create" by envisioning it. Through this series, I hope you will come to realize that the future is a practical business tool.

To help you feel the "future" a little closer and utilize it to solve current business challenges, next time we'll delve deeper into the key points of envisioning the future. Stay tuned.

Contact: Future Business Creation Research Institute (Attn: Yoshida / Yamada)  
future@dentsu.co.jp