On the Role of Intelligence and Business Wargaming in Developing Foresight
Aline Werro, Christian Nitzl, Uwe M. Borghoff
TL;DR
The paper investigates how intelligence processes can support strategic foresight in business by integrating military-derived intelligence concepts with business intelligence (BI) and competitive intelligence (CI) and by applying business wargaming as a learning and decision-support tool. It presents a conceptual synthesis of the intelligence cycle and demonstrates, through literature and mentored wargaming at a semiconductor manufacturer, that wargaming can strengthen two crucial phases of the cycle—planning/direction and analysis/production—and bridge BI and CI to test or develop strategy. It also discusses the benefits of role-playing, cross-functional collaboration, and potential AI-assisted analysis for future wargaming. The work highlights the practical value of wargaming for transforming data into actionable strategic insight and identifies directions for integrating cross-disciplinary methods and advanced analytics in corporate foresight.
Abstract
Business wargaming is a central tool for developing sustaining strategies. It transfers the benefits of traditional wargaming to the business environment. However, building wargames that support the process of decision-making for strategy require respective intelligence. This paper investigates the role of intelligence in the process of developing strategic foresight. The focus is on how intelligence is developed and how it relates to business wargaming. The so-called intelligence cycle is the basis and reference of our investigation. The conceptual part of the paper combines the theoretical background from military, business as well as serious gaming. To elaborate on some of the lessons learned, we examine specific business wargames both drawn from the literature and conducted by us at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS). It is shown that business wargaming can make a significant contribution to the transformation of data to intelligence by supporting the intelligence cycle in two crucial phases. Furthermore, it brings together business intelligence (BI) and competitive intelligence (CI) and it bridges the gap to a company's strategy by either testing or developing a new strategy. We were also able to confirm this finding based on the business wargame we conducted at a major semiconductor manufacturer.