The Future Laboratory

Our Story

The Future Laboratory is one of the world’s most renowned futures consultancies. With a unique blend of trend forecasting, consumer insight, foresight, brand strategy and innovation, we inspire and future-proof organisations.

When we started in 2000, we were two people and a dog with a handful of clients. Today, we have offices in London and Melbourne, and have worked with more than 1,000 businesses in 50 countries. Drawing on a workforce of more than 70 in-house experts, we assemble unique teams of journalists, writers, visual researchers and innovation analysts to document the new and the next across 21 industry sectors worldwide.

We deliver foresight through a number of products and services, including our trends intelligence platform, LS:N Global, and in person through our Strategic Services. Together, our strategic foresight helps our clients to harness market trends, understand and adapt to emerging consumer needs, position their brands for success and keep them ahead of their competitors.

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What we do

The Future Laboratory makes better futures happen for businesses

We help our clients engage with their future consumers, deliver thought-leadership, build and future-proof brands, and create innovation in their industry or category.

Our services enable our clients to identify and prioritise the trends that matter most, plot the strategic direction they need to take, and execute these plans to realise longer-term growth opportunities and remove the risk or doubt in the process.

Whether it be new product or service development, marketing communications, placemaking or customer experience, The Future Laboratory helps make a better future happen for our clients.

How

Our strategic foresight products and services empower businesses to make the right decisions, mitigate risks, reduce uncertainty and drive business performance. We deliver our strategic foresight through two divisions:

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Foresight

We deliver foresight to leading organisations in a number of ways. From Futures Presentations and Trends Intelligence Reports to LS:N Global Memberships, get to know your future consumers and understand how to use global trends and market shifts to your advantage.

Strategy

Our Strategy department takes our trends research one step further. We identify your future destination and develop a strategic plan that will enable you to get there. We do this through Strategic Research, Innovation Strategy & Sprints, Foresight Programmes and Commissioned Thought-Leadership.

Clients

We help the world’s biggest businesses to remain relevant, manage risk, identify opportunities for growth, and demonstrate the ability to innovate and disrupt their industries.

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Methodology

At the heart of The Future Laboratory is a proprietary research methodology that we use to shape the strategic thinking and foresight capabilities of FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations. Our process enables clients to interpret and frame all their decisions about future risk in a brand, consumer and organisational context that is provable, practical and minimises uncertainty.

We do this by understanding the influence of five global drivers causing profound, consistent – and therefore relatively predictable – change. Their impact is assessed against seven core human needs and the ensuing value shifts that change consumers’ attitudes and behaviour.

This leads us to a set of macrotrends and microtrends and their implications for the future landscape, which forms the foundation of our foresight framework.