When it comes to strategic foresight and future-proofing your business, few tools are as powerful as a trend radar. A well-constructed trend radar can help you understand the trends heading your way, so you can navigate the future with confidence. But just like dividing a pizza between friends, creating a trend radar requires careful consideration of how to slice it. So, how do you choose the right sectors for your radar?
Pro tip: When you're ready to create a trend radar, remember that FIBRES is equipped with a flexible trend radar builder to cover all your trend tracking needs. But now, let’s explore how you can make decisions about your radar sectors, so your radar is perfectly tailored to your needs and ready to help you spot what’s coming next!
Trend radars: your foresight pizza
The beauty of a radar is that it can be customized to fit your unique foresight needs, but that flexibility can also make it tricky to decide how to divide it up. Together with different trend radar horizons, your options are only multiplied.
Should you slice it by the origins of the trends, by the parts of your business they’ll impact, or by the types of trends themselves? Let’s dive in.
3 alternative ways to slice up radars
Let's start with three trend radar examples to get our creative juices flowing. These trend radar types are commonly used, but if none of them seem the right fit for your needs, don't worry and just keep reading. We'll help you find the perfect sectors for your needs.
By trend origin
Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal—these are the classic categories in the PESTEL framework. If you want to understand where your trends are coming from, this approach is a solid choice. It allows you to spot trends driven by macro forces in your industry or region.
If PESTEL is too granular for you, consider limiting the number of sectors. German automotive supplier Vitesco Technologies has sliced their radar into Market, Technology, and Legislation. These three sectors represent the three most important areas for Vitesco to keep an eye on, and thus they are reflected on their corporate trend radar. Efficient!
By domain or topic
Are you focusing on technological advancements like AI, Machine Learning, or Robotics? Or perhaps you’re more concerned with social trends like Remote work or Sustainability? Categorizing by trend type allows you to zero in on specific areas of interest and expertise, making it easier to track developments that matter most to your business.
Many technology radars use this approach. For instance, Zalando's tech radar is separated into 4 sectors: Datastores, Data Management, Infrastructure, and Languages. This structure helps Zalando focus on the specific technological domains that are critical to their operations. It’s a great example to check out if you’re looking for inspiration on how to organize your own radar by trend domain or topic.
By impact
Categorizing trends based on their potential impact—whether they’re minor shifts or major disruptors—can help you prioritize your focus. This approach ensures that your radar highlights the trends that could have the most significant effects on your business, allowing you to allocate resources and attention where they’re needed most. By assessing impact size, you’re better equipped to prepare for both immediate changes and long-term shifts in your industry.
A well-known example of this type of radar is the DHL Logistics Trend Radar. It’s designed with sectors based on impact size, where the most impactful trends are positioned at the top of the radar, and lower impact trends are at the bottom. This additional layer of assessment helps DHL prioritize and navigate the trends that will have the biggest influence on their operations, ensuring they stay ahead in a rapidly changing industry.
What's the purpose of your trend radar?
So, what are the best sectors for a trend radar? The answer is: it depends. Start by asking yourself: What is the primary purpose of my radar?
Strategic planning: Do you need a radar that ensures you are keeping up-to-date with a 360-degree view of your entire business environment? If your goal is to influence high-level business strategy, consider using PESTEL categories or business functions. This helps keep the radar aligned with your broader company goals.
Innovation tracking: Do you need to monitor an already identified domain of interest at reasonable granularity? If you’re tracking emerging technologies or new ways of working, organizing by topic or domain might make the most sense. This allows you to stay ahead of the curve in specific areas.
Operational readiness: Do you need to communicate already identified phenomena and their impacts in an easy-to-consume way? If your radar is meant to prepare different departments for what’s coming, slicing by operational impact ensures everyone has a clear focus.
For more detailed guidance on how to select the right horizons to complement your selected sectors, check out our blog on trend radar horizons. This resource will help you tailor your radar even further to meet your needs.
Checklist for choosing your sectors
Before you jump into trend tracking, it’s worth taking a moment to set the foundation. The sectors you choose for your radar aren’t just about visualization—they’ll shape what you’re keeping an eye on and how you document the trends you track.
To make sure your radar is spot on, here’s a quick checklist to guide your thinking:
- Purpose: What’s the main goal of your radar? Knowing this will help you structure it in a way that aligns with your strategic objectives.
- Audience: Who’s going to use or look at the radar? Tailoring your sectors to your audience ensures it’s relatable and valuable to them.
- Needs: What kind of insights do you and your team need? This will help determine the level of detail and focus areas for your radar.
- Longevity: Is your radar a one-off exercise, or will it be the backbone of your foresight efforts over time? This will influence how flexible or durable your radar needs to be.
- Flexibility: How adaptable does your radar need to be? Trends evolve, and so should your radar. Consider if it's important to easily update, add, or re-categorize sectors as new information emerges or as your focus shifts.
- Generic vs. specific: How deep do you want to go? Deciding between broader categories and more specific ones will shape how you track and analyze trends.
- Number of radars: Are you building a single radar or several? Consider whether all your data needs to fit into one radar or if multiple layouts would better serve your needs.
By answering these questions, you’ll be able to create trend radar sectors that are not only relevant but also impactful. Taking the time to think through these factors will lead to a radar that’s clear, focused, and truly useful in guiding your foresight efforts.
Conclusion
Think of your trend radar like a pizza—every slice represents a different sector or category of trends you’re tracking. Your choice of sectors isn’t just about creating a nice-looking trend chart but about defining what really matters in your trend tracking. A trend radar visualization that is relevant, focused, and flexible will serve you far better in the long run.
Remember, foresight isn’t just for the experts—it’s for anyone who wants to be ready for the future. And with the right trend radar in place, you can turn uncertainty into opportunity. So, what sectors will your radar focus on? Let’s find out together.
Ready to build your radar?
Creating the perfect trend radar is a balance of art and science, and FIBRES is here to help you master both. Our trend radar builder makes it easy to design your radar so it fits your unique foresight needs. Plus, our product experts are just a meeting away if you need guidance on how to create a delicious trend or tech radar.
