Abstract:

Over the past ten to fifteen years, decision-makers have gradually turned to scenario-based approaches. In these, rather than try to foretell the future as an extension of the present, they seek more realistically to envisage possible states of the world and to frame strategies capable of adapting to these different eventualities. Naturally, these scenarios need to be based on suitable hypotheses of change. The market researcher can contribute to the formulation of plausible scenarios. In other words, although he does not claim to predict the future, he can investigate a number of hypotheses of change, help to narrow the field and to explore the different possibilities.