The Strategic Foresight in Business Management program gave SOK’s Kati Harki and Heidi Kääriäinen fresh perspectives on scenario work, hands-on experience with foresight tools – and valuable insight into how strategic foresight has been successfully applied in other organizations.

Marketing Strategist Kati Harki and Market & Customer Insight Lead Heidi Kääriäinen from SOK have strengthened their strategic foresight capabilities through Aalto EE’s Strategic Foresight in Business Management program.

The idea to participate in the program came from Kati Harki, who works as a marketing strategist for the Sokos and Sokos Emotion specialty retail chains. She explains that she is still a relatively new face at SOK.

“I’ve been working at SOK for about three years now. I’ve been genuinely impressed by how things are done here. The scale of operations, SOK’s data-driven approach, and the strategic mindset that underpins everything are exceptional. On top of that, the work environment is truly fantastic. It’s definitely one of my favorite things about SOK.”

Overall, the three-day program was excellent – and the guest speakers were the crown jewels that made the experience outstanding."

Kati Harki discovered the Aalto EE program while looking for new tools to structure future scenarios.

“Competition in the consumer goods trade is extremely intense, both with global and local players. I was looking for practical tools that would help provide visibility when choosing the right path. Strategic Foresight in Business Management seemed to offer exactly what I was looking for.”

“I persuaded Heidi to join me, because we have a fantastic policy at SOK: whenever someone goes to a training program, they’re encouraged to bring a colleague. That way, the new knowledge can be shared and embedded more effectively across the organization,” Kati Harki says.

The nine-person Market and Customer Insight team led by Heidi Kääriäinen supports data-driven decision-making in all of SOK’s operations.

“I joined in with enthusiasm, but all the credit goes to Kati – she found the program, did the internal pitching, and made it possible for me to participate as well. I was particularly interested in discovering new foresight tools and methods that my team could offer at SOK to support both marketing and, more broadly, decision-making across the entire business,” Heidi Kääriäinen explains.

A balanced package of theory and practice

Harki and Kääriäinen emphasize that the program offered a well-balanced combination of theory and practice.

“Overall, the three-day program was excellent – and the guest speakers were the crown jewels that made the experience outstanding,” Heidi Kääriäinen reminisces.

“For me, their real-life examples sparked the most concrete and inspiring ideas about how we could make even greater use of foresight at SOK. It was fascinating to hear how foresight has been applied and successfully advanced in other organizations. In our training, the guest speakers were from Tamro and Kela. Their experiences of involving people extensively in foresight were particularly inspiring,” she highlights.

Harki and Kääriäinen affirm that the program clearly illustrated how foresight can be implemented in practice.

“Many people assume that foresight is something tremendously difficult, but it’s not rocket science. Of course, top experts use complex modeling – Eeva Vilkkumaa showed us one truly jaw-dropping mathematical framework – but in the end, many of the tools are actually quite simple to use,” Kati Harki notes.

“We got a good overview of various scenario methods and hands-on practice in using different foresight tools. The Futures Tables scenario planning tool was my personal favorite. It’s clear and quite easy to use, even in a busy day-to-day context. I’ve definitely been using it the most in my own work,” she adds.

Participating together was a major advantage

Both say that attending the program together with a colleague was a major advantage.

The program reinforced our view that foresight should never be the responsibility of just one team, let alone individual employees."

“We were able to bounce ideas off each other from our own organization’s perspective throughout the program, and afterward, it’s been much easier to put what we learned into practice at SOK together. Quite a few participants commented to us how lucky we were to attend as a pair, and honestly, they couldn’t have been more right,” Kati Harki says with a smile.

One of Harki and Kääriäinen’s key takeaways was that foresight should be embraced by the whole organization.

“The program reinforced our view that foresight should never be the responsibility of just one team, let alone individual employees. Finding direction and insight should be a collaborative effort involving a broad group. Of course, not everyone needs the same skill set: some are champions of foresight and lead development, but it’s important that many people are engaged. This is an area where we still have work to do,” Heidi Kääriäinen underlines.

Harki and Kääriäinen have actively shared the program’s insights at SOK: they distilled the key learnings into a joint presentation for SOK’s marketing specialists, and Kati Harki organized a separate half-day workshop on foresight tools for her fellow marketing strategists.

“Since the program was held in early summer, we decided to wait until after the holidays to share our insights at SOK. That turned out to be a great call. Revisiting everything we’d learned was incredibly helpful, and as we put our presentation together, we came up with even more ways to apply foresight across SOK,” Heidi Kääriäinen explains.

“We got a really positive response. Having both of us, from two different teams presenting together made it much easier to highlight the benefits of foresight. Quite a few colleagues came up to thank us afterward and asked for more tips,” she adds.

Foresight helps prepare for disruption and shape the future

Harki and Kääriäinen say they are pleased to recommend the Strategic Foresight in Business Management program.

At Aalto EE, you get a strong foundation in both the theory and practice of foresight."

“No one can predict the future – but if you do nothing, you’re just drifting in the currents of change. Foresight helps identify new opportunities, prepare for disruptions, and also influence what kind of future ultimately takes shape,” Kati Harki summarizes.

“The most important thing is to pause for a moment and reflect on what the future vision is that you want to move toward. At Aalto EE, you get a strong foundation in both the theory and practice of foresight, as well as solid capabilities to choose the foresight tools that best suit your own needs,” she points out.

Harki and Kääriäinen have a few key tips for those considering participating in the training:

“It’s an intensive program. I recommend clearing your schedule so that you can focus solely on learning. The conversations with other participants are incredibly valuable, so you won’t want to slip away during breaks to take care of work tasks either,” Heidi Kääriäinen advises.

“The post-program assignment is also an important part of the learning experience, and it’s certainly worth investing time in it. For us, the assignment turned out to be highly beneficial: it definitely strengthened our view of how strategic foresight can be applied even more comprehensively at SOK,” Kati Harki concludes.

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