Case #10: Anticipate the Future with Company Foresight
- Marco Schlimpert
- May 3
- 8 min read
A story about two Company Foresight constellations, a war in the Middle East, and the courage to trust insights no database in the world can provide.
There are moments when, looking back, you no longer know whether to marvel or doubt. Moments when reality aligns so precisely with a prediction that you ask yourself: Was that coincidence? Intuition? Or does the human system operate in ways we do not yet fully understand?
This use case is about one such moment. Or more precisely: two moments that unfolded on the same day, in the same room, in Lido di Venezia — and only revealed their full significance five months later.
No predictive analytics model in the world would have delivered this picture with this precision, this far in advance.
Lido di Venezia, Company Foresight, September 2025
It was on the Lido di Venezia that Company Foresight took place for the very first time — a format for entrepreneurs and executives facing complex decisions who work through them using the innovative method of systemic diagnostics.
This is not a conventional conference with cinema-style seating, keynotes from motivational speakers, expert talks, panels, or PowerPoint decks. Instead: systemic constellations that make emergent dynamics visible — information that exists in no database. Every participant operates in a dual role: both as the person bringing their own question, and as a representative for the questions of others.
Michael (name anonymised) is one of those participants — VP Procurement at one of Europe's largest commercial vehicle manufacturers. His company is under considerable economic pressure, as so many companies are right now. His question: How will his company's business situation develop over the next two years — and what role will global procurement play in that?
Which lever moves the business result most effectively?
Michael had three strategic options on the table: Value Engineering, Innovation, and Digitalisation. The question preoccupying him was not academic — it would determine where his team invested its energy over the next two years.
In the constellation, the central system elements were embodied by representatives: Competitors, Procurement Market, Sales Market, and the company's Financial Performance. No representative knew their assigned element — the process is deliberately blind, to minimise projection.
What unfolded in the room was unambiguous:
Representative · Financial Performance · Time Horizon 2026 "There is tension, and sitting down reduces the tension. I need strong support at my back" |
The representative for Financial Performance sat down and leaned against a pillar. No dramatic gesture — but an unmistakable physical statement: the financial result needs support. It is under pressure. It is not collapsing — but it is struggling.
At the same time, the Competitors moved closer. The Sales Market reported increasing constraint. And Procurement? For the first time in the constellation, it began actively building a connection to Financial Performance.
When the three strategic levers were tested, the clearest signal of the day followed. Value Engineering activated the entire system. The representative for the Sales Market — without any knowledge of the context — responded spontaneously:
Representative · Sales Market · on Value Engineering "Cool. Simply brillant." |
Digitalisation, on the other hand, generated physical discomfort — a feeling of acid in the stomach — and was rejected by multiple elements. Innovation showed energy, but no sustainability. The constellation spoke a clear language: Value Engineering is the lever.
Digitalisation is systemically premature, particularly in this conservative industry. Innovation belongs in the hands of suppliers, not in internal initiatives.
2026 is not a crisis year. It is a year that needs support structures — and one that lays the foundation for 2027. |
A second consellation — initially of no direct relevance to Michael
On the same day, Michael participated in all remaining constellations as a representative for various elements. But one of these stood out: he served as a representative in the constellation of a colleague from the executive search industry. His colleague's question: How will four geographic markets develop in 2026?
The markets: DACH, UK, Benelux — and the Middle East.
Michael, like the other participants, had no idea which element he would embody. He drew a number. He stood in the space. And then he began to report what he felt.
First, openness. Curiosity. A sense of expansiveness — interested in the ocean, as he described it. Then an impulse to withdraw. A densification. A concentration inward, to gather strength. And finally, at the time marker corresponding to February 2026, a precise, quiet statement:
Representative · Middle East · Time marker February 2026 "I feel powerless and withdrawn." |
Only after the constellation did he learn which element he had embodied.
"Powerless and withdrawn." February 2026. The Middle East.
What happened next - Five Months later
In February 2026, the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. The geopolitical shockwaves were immediate: the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, commodity prices surged, supply chains shifted, and the risk climate across the entire Middle East changed overnight.
For Michael as VP Procurement in the commercial vehicle industry, this was no abstract geopolitical topic. It was lived procurement reality. Precisely the conditions described by the feeling of withdrawal, constraint, and inability to perform at full capacity.
The constellation field had intuitively — not by deliberate design — placed the participant for whom the Middle East was not an abstraction, but daily reality, into that role. |
At the same time, his own constellation confirmed itself with a precision that gives pause:
✓ Financial performance under significant pressure — exactly as the supported representative had signalled ✓ Personnel reductions were initiated ✓ Procurement took on additional Engineering teams — strategic expansion as projected in the constellation ✓ Value Engineering active — cross-functional collaboration began in early 2026 ✓ Recovery horizon 2027 — better than 2026, but not back to 2025 levels |
Five points. All confirmed. Generated five months before the events occurred.
How is this possible?
A brief look at physics.
I studied mechanical engineering. I love the elegance of physical models. And for a long time I was convinced that you can only truly understand the world if you can express it in equations.
Then I encountered the CPT theorem — and it fundamentally changed my thinking
The CPT theorem comes from quantum field theory — the mathematical framework that describes how particles and forces interact in our universe. It states: when three fundamental symmetries are combined simultaneously, the world looks exactly the same — regardless of which direction you look. Think of nature as a film that runs forward and backward according to the same rules.
The three symmetries, briefly explained:
• C — Charge: If every particle is exchanged with its antiparticle, the physics remains the same. Matter and antimatter follow identical laws.
• P — Parity: If the entire space is mirrored — left becomes right, up becomes down — the fundamental laws remain unchanged.
• T — Time: If the direction of time is reversed, the same physical laws apply. Nature — at the fundamental level — has no preferred direction of time.
That is the decisive insight: past and future are subject to the same laws. They are mirror images of one another within the same system. Physics itself gives us a hint that time is not a one-way street — but a field in which patterns are readable in both directions.
That is precisely what we experience in the systemic constellation. Not as metaphor — but as an operative principle.
Predictive analytics, AI models, machine learning — they all learn from the past and project forward. This works well as long as the future resembles the past. But the strike on Iran in February 2026 was in no training database. The physical withdrawal of a representative who intuitively feels the procurement reality of an entire market cannot be translated into an Excel model. That is the blind spot of every equation that only reads from the past.
The systemic constellation reads in both directions — from the past and from the future. It activates the collective perceptive capacity of a group to make visible the dynamics already embedded in the system — before they manifest in key performance figures. The result is not a data point. It is a system signal.
If nature follows the same laws forward and backward - what prevents us from recognizing patterns of the future before they arrive? |
WHAT this case demonstrates — und what it means for you
This story is an argument for extending classical, past-based data analysis by the dimension of the future.
After Venice, Michael did not have a new spreadsheet. No new benchmark study. He had something else: clarity. The system was not visible as a diagram. Not as a table. But as a living dynamic — perceivable by and for all participants simultaneously. Procurement as an emerging driver of value creation. Value Engineering as the effective lever. 2026 as a year that needs support, but does not collapse. And 2027 as the horizon in which the company recovers.
These are not abstract projections. These are navigational reference points that he was able to use during one of the most difficult phases his company has faced — and which proved to be accurate.
Imagine having clarity about the future in the midst of current turbulence. For which decision in your company would you most want this quality of clarity? Which strategic switch is currently open — and waiting for a signal no dashboard can deliver?
Two independent constellations. One shared and connected reality. Generated in a matter of hours, nine months before it arrived.
This is the power of Lido Company Foresight. Multiple independent signals. One shared reality. |
The next Lido event — Autumn 2026
What Michael experienced in Venice is not an isolated case or coincidence. It is the format.
Lido Company Foresight will take place for the second time in Autumn 2026 — at the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido di Venezia. Two days, a maximum of 12 participants, strictly confidential. No classical conference seating. No keynotes. No standard consulting or speaking programme.
Instead: your most pressing strategic challenge — worked through with a method that begins where data models end.
Your take-away: ✓ Strategic clarity on your most pressing challenge ✓ Roadmap for 2027 / 2028 ✓ Future intelligence: geopolitics, supply chains, revenue opportunities — before they appear in numbers ✓ Exclusives network: 12 decision-makers, not in competition | THE FACTS Automn 2026 Hotel Excelsior, Lido di Venezia Max. 12 places · Strictly confidential. Curious? Send me a DM. |
What traditional consultancies such as McKinsey, BCG, or Horváth etc. deliver are analyses of the past, cost-reduction recommendations, and efficiency programmes. That is valuable — but it does not solve the problem that keeps you awake at night.
Lido Company Foresight begins where classical consulting ends: at the emergent, the not-yet-measurable, the system behind the system. It tests your strategies before reality does.
The question is not whethere systemic constellations works.
The question is: can you afford not to use it?
"Only those who looked competently into the future enjoyed the present with serenity and confidence." — Stefan Zweig
Your next step
You have now gained an insight into what Company Foresight delivers — and why it is an ideal complement to classical analysis.
👉 Visit my webseite www.marcoschlimpert.com/en
Schedule a 20 min free conversation with me, or ask my personal AI assistant, who can answer your questions directly.
Thirty minutes is usually enough to clarify whether and how Company Foresight can help in your specific situation.
Comments