understanding opportunity and risk

minimising future risk       creating sustainable advantage       creating opportunity

HEADS IN THE SAND February, 2011

The main problem with forecasting global events (and bringing strategic benefit to business) is persuading decision makers they should listen. We at Alt3 can speak at great length about the benefits of knowing how a market will develop and therefore developing products and services for the new world ... but quite often people aren't interested. And then we're proven right - then the decision makers become embarrassed and come out with a whole range of colourful excuses. But still they won't listen.

And why won't they believe us?

It is invariably because people - in general - are transfixed with what they see. They are transfixed with what's directly in front of them. Subconsciously they classify these current events as either a threat or a benefit. Threats receive the highest level of attention but only if they have a direct effect. This is the case because people are hardwired towards survival - and the greatest threat to anyones survival is, well, a threat.

A classic example is happening right before our eyes - today.

Politicians and business people are watching carefully the events unfold across the Middle East region as (non-democratic) governments come under increasing internal mass pressure for change. In all truth these are dramatic events. People see these events and this is what takes much of their attention. They don't see what else is taking place throughout the world - and have been for several years now. We at Alt3 know these other events have been taking place for some time because about 2 years ago we explicitly warned of a series of linked consequences that would start around 2010-11, to fully impact in 2012 and from this point cascade rapidly throughout the world.

And do you know what? This series of linked consequences are taking place - and will be forcefully felt in the summer / autumn of 2011, with dire effects in the winter of 2011 / early 2012. And what did we warn of?

1. Reliance on oil to power growth will begin to undermine economic sustainability. Oil and gas will soon be used as political and financial "leverage".

2. Due to the shifting climate model there would be an extended series of devastating storms, floods and droughts. This would seriously start to affect global food prices in 2011. The result would be a massive increase in prices. This will have a negative impact on the financial markets.

3. Together with 2, the availability of fresh water (per head of population) would decrease below tolerable limits for some sensitive regions of the world, adding to the cost of food prices and the instability of financial markets.

4. There will be a migratory shift in population from the land to the already overcrowded cities. This will further diminish the ability of countries to be self sufficient in food.

5. There will be a 2nd and more significant wave of migration from the less developed regions of the world to the perceived more developed regions of the world. This will effectively empty some areas of the world and bring with it serious problems to the cities of the developed world (details available if required). This will also see an increase in the number of criminal gangs exploiting human slavery, drugs, weapons.

6. There will be a spread of tropical diseases. There will be serious social, cultural, religious tensions that will be a perfect breeding ground for extremism, with all the inhuman consequences this entails. There WILL be conflict. Governments WILL fall. It will make what's happening in the Middle East today as "the good old days".

The above points will coincide with the cyclic behaviour of terrorist activities.

We are telling you now. The world as we know is about to rapidly change. The business world will change. The political world will change. The social world will change. How much more clear can we be?

Number 1 is well known. Number 2 is only now starting to be understood with present warning about the "unforeseen" and unprecedented increase in global food prices. Likewise, number 3 is also starting to be understood. 2012 will see a clear understanding of number 4. And once this starts there will be no stopping numbers 5 and 6.

The above points are, of course, further complicated if Iran is allowed to achieve nuclear weapons status, and if (or when) North Korea begins to sell nuclear weapons on the black market.

The world is about to change. If you are a business, don't you at least want to know how this will impact you? Your suppliers? Your services? Your products? Your markets? If you are a politician, how seriously are you taking the changes happening in front of you. We all watch what is unfolding throughout the Middle East, but honestly, we really need to understand the wider, beneath the surface, changes taking place. These are changes that will affect everyone. They will create hardships, but importantly, they will create opportunity. It is important to know what these opportunities will be. You won't see them if you stick your heads in the sand and pretend the world isn't changing.

If Alt3 can understand the changes two whole years before they start to happen ... just imagine what else we can do. Through what we know we create sustainable advantage.

Regards

JS

If you don't understand the risks, how can you prepare? Can you afford to let the issues be blurred?

The turbulent 21st century

life isn't black and white

central@alt3.co.uk