Up & Out #9: A Guide to Annual Forecasts

• It grounds intelligence work in the organisation’s reality. Many corporate intelligence teams start small – perhaps with only one to three people responsible for global coverage. When resources are limited, delegating work across ‘themes’ is more efficient than assigning people to ‘regions.’ The annual forecast serves as your North Star, helping to set priorities for the year ahead and minimising distractions when stakeholders need you to stay on target.

• It creates operational value by unifying themes across the reporting portfolio. By setting the course, an annual forecast ensures consistency across products, from mid-year updates to daily briefs, and provides a shared reference so everything aligns with an overarching narrative – check out our illustration of an example reporting architecture in the image below.

• It increases credibility and influence with new audiences. Even if your intelligence function lives within corporate security, a forecasting exercise forces analysts to look beyond immediate security threats to more macro, long-term drivers of risk. Writing through this lens demonstrates a proactive ability to set the agenda, not just chase headlines.

• It institutionalises analytic discipline. An annual forecast can be highly anticipated by readers, which raises the pressure. This challenges analysts to articulate their assumptions and confidence levels convincingly, while embedding realistic scenarios. The result is stronger analytic rigor and fewer awkward moments when you have to refine judgements later under an executive board’s critical eye.

• It sparks dialogue with senior stakeholders over risk appetite. As the late American stunt performer Evel Knievel once said, “Where there is little risk, there is little reward.” Despite the volatile environment, this principle still resonates with many business leaders. With a scope that focuses only on top-level themes tied directly to organisational objectives, an annual forecast provides an accessible reference point for a conversation about involving the intelligence team in identifying business opportunities – not just challenges.

• Anchor the report within your firm’s vision, mission, strategy, and geography. Intelligence teams can check for existing risk registers in their organisation’s latest annual report for shareholders (known as the ‘10-K’ for publicly traded firms in the US), ESG report, strategic plan, or letters to shareholders. Such resources provide an accessible window into executive priorities and investor guidance, which helps to anticipate where the company’s exposure will grow. It’s also worth checking if other teams such as risk, governance or public affairs are also scanning the horizon, which can reveal opportunities for collaboration.

• Tie forecasts to intelligence requirements (explicitly or implicitly). You might ask a prospective reader, “What insights can I provide to help you make better decisions in the year ahead?” If you’re not sure how to choose global themes, environmental scanning techniques like STEMPLES (Societal, Technological, Environment, Military, Political, Legal, Economic, Security) and ETOP (Environmental Threat and Opportunity Profile) can help to divide thinking into sectors, then you can identify risks and opportunities within those.

• Stay disciplined on breadth and depth. Choose a maximum of 10 themes, but ideally five to seven. Your insights should be concise and actionable – stick to summaries of two to three paragraphs for each theme, with clear implications for the organisation. If you include visuals (such as heat maps or charts), ensure they complement the assessment and rest on high-quality data.

• Build stakeholder engagement into the finalisation process. Use your network of allies within the organisation to circulate a draft with senior leaders and other business units before the final review and distribution. You could request 15-minute feedback sessions to test resonance and ensure buy-in. Investor relations and corporate communications teams are a real blessing here, as they are used to project-managing high-visibility reports and statements to ensure a consistent voice.

• Use other annual forecasts as base templates. If you come across a report that is particularly well structured or insightful, use it as a model for your own approach. As you’ll see in our next Sibylline Annual Forecast (due mid-December), our objective is to cover broad themes that we believe are relevant to range of organisations. You can adopt similar themes – just ensure to adapt them to your organisation’s context. For example, explain how drivers like geopolitical shifts, supply chain tensions, or AI regulation will impact your firm’s specific industry or operating environment.

• Ensure a well-organised rollout plan. Like all intelligence products, annual forecasts must be timely. Publishing near the end of Q4 may not be ideal if your audience prefers to plan around the organisation’s financial reporting and not the calendar year, so consider aligning timing with investment cycles to maximise impact. Once the report is live, then ensure all executive summaries, slide decks and internal briefing notes are easily accessible – this is essential for preparing the report as an input to any executive committee discussions.