Innovation in Scenario Building

Abstract

Situated in Paraná state in southern Brazil, the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba (MRC) is home to an automotive sector which plays a major role in the local and national economy. In order to expand the development of the automotive sector and to create new local and worldwide opportunities, the Federation of Industries of Paraná (FIEP) developed and employed an innovative scenario building methodology to analyze the automotive industry’s potential for innovation and attendance of new market demands for 2020; which is Sector Foresight. Therefore, results allow the players to have a clearer managerial view of the industry’s possible future. This chapter seeks to publicize the experience as well as the results of this innovative project by focusing on the methodology and tools. Data sources included a review of the literature, document analysis, direct observation, semi-structured interviews and two rounds of questionnaires. This experience contributed to innovate the organizational and methodological processes of FIEP, and to improve the perspective of innovation in the automotive sector through a new approach to scenario building. Results also shown this methodology can be applied to other industries in future studies.