From silos to strategic foresight: A journey to scalable futures intelligence

Henna-Maria leads clinical innovation work across EMEA as part of International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.’s Clinical Innovation and Translation team within the company’s Health Sciences business unit. A scientist and foresight expert by training and a PhD in food chemistry, she’s passionate about turning scientific insight into real-world health and wellbeing. As she puts it, she thrives on “discovering groundbreaking technologies” and applying “forward-thinking strategies” to long-term innovation.

In 2023, she spotted a critical opportunity: to integrate foresight across divisions and functions more seamlessly by making it collaborative, visible, and strategic.

The challenge: Too many signals, not enough shared sensemaking

Henna-Maria had been evaluating foresight maturity across her company’s divisions. While the foresight maturity was overall high across company, development points were also identified.

“There were a lot of valuable insights being gathered,” she explains. “Researchers were attending conferences and sales teams were talking to customers, but these insights weren’t collectively gathered for mapping and sensemaking by cross-functional teams. They stayed in individual documents, or just in people’s heads.”

What was missing wasn’t insight itself. It was a shared way to capture and use it.

Signals weren’t being collected or discussed as a group. Different teams, such as R&D, marketing, business development, each had their own methods. A common platform was missing, which made it hard to align around what was emerging or where to focus next.

A turning point: Discovering FIBRES

While taking part in a Futures Studies course at Turku School of Economics, Henna-Maria was introduced to FIBRES. The timing couldn’t have been better.

“I was doing an internal evaluation of our foresight capabilities at the same time,” she says. “I immediately saw how FIBRES could help us overcome the gaps I had identified and especially the lack of a shared tool for collecting, mapping, and making sense of weak signals.”

What stood out most was the tool’s usability.

“FIBRES is so intuitive. We could onboard people from R&D, marketing, and sales without long training sessions. That was essential.”

She especially appreciated how contributors could quickly capture insights in real time. “You can snap a photo of a slide or a poster at a conference and upload it directly into FIBRES from your phone. And with the radar views, it’s easy to see how those signals connect.”

Foresight in action: From trend signals to strategic exploration

In spring 2024, Henna-Maria and colleagues facilitated cross-functional workshops across several focus areas, including one on the future of immune respiratory support.

“Our goal was to explore how the allergy landscape might evolve,” says Henna-Maria. “We examined the driving forces, unmet needs, and developments in science, regulation, and consumer behavior.”

The foresight work revealed a consistent pattern: allergy prevalence is on the rise, with indicators suggesting this trend may persist. These insights informed internal strategic thinking and scenario planning.

“The future-oriented perspective helped us better understand potential directions for innovation,” Henna-Maria explains. “It supported our internal discussions around opportunities, including the conceptualization of a synbiotic product for seasonal respiratory support.”

Building a connected foresight ecosystem with Valona

With initial success in hand, the team turned their attention to scaling futures intelligence across functions. The integration between futures intelligence and market intelligence, facilitated by Valona, became a game-changer.

“Our company had already used Valona for distributing curated insights more broadly across the organization,” Henna-Maria explains. “Integrating Valona to FIBRES has brought even added benefits. Our collaborative mapping and deeper analysis efforts have been enhanced, building shared foresight.”

Today, the foresight work involves pulling in data from scientific literature, RSS feeds, conference notes, market intelligence tools, and Valona itself. Visual clarity is achieved through FIBRES radars that can be distributed across functions.

“The integration ensures a seamless flow,” Henna-Maria says. “Valona feeds enrich our radars with curated inputs. And from there, I think we can push synthesized insights back out through Valona to reach decision-makers company-wide.”

“People in R&D and sales, who may not have been exposed to futures thinking before, can now be part of the process. I think that has been one of the biggest wins: engagement and shared understanding.”

A cultural shift in how foresight is done

The transformation has gone beyond tools. It’s changed how teams think and work.

“Having a shared platform makes foresight more accessible,” says Henna-Maria. “Now, when someone attends a trade show or finds a signal in scientific literature, they know exactly where to put it. And others know where to find it.”

That visibility has helped break down silos. Teams are now working from a shared map of emerging trends and future scenarios.

“Sharing futures intelligence company-wide is critical, especially in health sciences where the time-to-market is often long. R&D teams need to think years ahead.”

Lessons for other foresight professionals

For others looking to scale their foresight work, Henna-Maria offers two key lessons.

First, assess where you are. “Start by mapping your current state. You may already have people doing foresight work even if it’s not called that. Look for the bottlenecks. For us, the missing piece was clearly a shared tool for collecting and connecting insights.”

Second, expect a learning curve. “Not everyone will jump in right away. Some are more change-resistant. But if you can show early value and bring in the right champions, momentum will follow.”

What’s next

Henna-Maria is excited about new FIBRES features on the horizon and sees even more potential in closer collaboration between foresight and market intelligence functions.

“Foresight helps create a shared vision of the future,” she says. “And now, with tools like FIBRES and Valona working together, we have the foundation to make that vision clearer and more actionable than ever before.”