Debate Series: What business should learn from geopolitical experts? Strategic Foresight Events for AmCham Members in CZ, RO, PL, SK

This fall, AmCham Czechia, AmCham Poland, AmCham Romania and AmCham Slovakia invite their members to a series of 3 online debates (75 min each) when geopolitics and strategic foresight experts will answer questions such as: 

• Is there “a golden rule” on how to plan for highly unlikely events but remain economically efficient? How should businesses square the circle of security?
• Should we rely more on concepts used for modelling natural disasters instead of those used by finance when assessing business risks, especially ones connected with geopolitics, future pandemics, and climate change? 
• Are there some industries better at dealing  with business continuity issues? 
• How to improve our future thinking and  strategic foresight?
• Is there a way to secure business continuity in highly unpredictable times?

The guest speakers of the second session, on October 25 between 16:00 - 17:30, Troy Thomas​, Managing Director & Partner, Washington, DC, Boston Consulting Group, will focus on:

• What is similar and what is different in how to approach strategic planning in the public and private sectors?
• Lessons from the experiences with the private sector clients.
• Cyber risk - a top issue/priority; a vison about the evolving of the cyber risk; best practices on how to manage them.
• The region is feeling very much buffeted by a range of once black swan type events - covid, climate change, migration, war, energy cutoffs. How can businesses think and plan strategically in that kind of environment? How can business leaders incorporate greater resilience into their business plans?
• The leading topics among global CEOs - sustainability, AI and talent.

Next in this series:

• Nov 16: Ambassador Douglas Lute, Former United States Ambassador to NATO, Board Member, Center for International Private Enterprise

Global trade and supply chains have made geographically, politically, and culturally very different societies mutually interdependent. Economists claim that these economic blocs may have little incentive to exploit each other’s vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, the consequences of disruptions are the more devasting the deeper interdependence is. The same interdependence that drives down the probability of conflict (by reducing motivation) also increases the consequences (by worsening its potential impact).

Since risk is a product of probability and consequences¸ increased interdependence plays an ambiguous  role. That ambiguity means that the increased interdependence is often interpreted in diametrically opposed way by businesses, who focus on the reduced probability of conflict, and external threat experts, who are wary of the heightened consequences of disruptions.

In many cases it results in economic and security interests opposing each other. Namely, decision-makers are asked to weigh high-probability economic gains against low-probability but high-impact external threat risks. Decision-makers often struggle to assess low-probability, high-impact events rationally. When very unlikely events or “tail” risks are not discussed, businesses often underestimate the likelihood of their occurrence; they focus on what happens when everything is normal, not what might happen at the outer limits of probability.

For instance, in business  continuity planning businesses typically neglect highly improbable events (wars, pandemics, natural disasters), even if they would have a high impact. When tail risks are discussed, however, the opposite occurs: people are likely to overestimate that the risk will come to pass.