On September 12, the Houston Promotional Products Association hosted a luncheon and education session featuring PPAI’s Paul Bellantone, CAE, president and CEO and Anne Stone, director of public affairs, who delivered a presentation on strategic foresight. They discussed how listeners could be aware of and identify critical and emerging trends to help them position their businesses to take advantage of or prepare for the disruptions those trends may bring.

“In today’s uncertain climate, strategic foresight is a necessity in order to survive,” says Walter Kurt, principal at distributor Three K Consultants, and an HPPA member who attended the program. “We always need to keep an eye out for opportunities. Paul and Anne’s presentation outlined the steps we should take to help limit the failures and increase the successes. Look to the future and prepare yourself for the trends, bumps in the road and the ultimate successes.”

HPPA President Leslie Roark, CAS, IP, president of PromoPros/IncentPros, Inc., says, “Anne and Paul masterfully tag-teamed on delivering PPAI’s strategic foresight message to our members. They took complex information and presented it in a succinct and easy-to-understand way. We were given tools to use with our own companies, and steps to consider in achieving our goals. It was not just a great, informative and fun presentation—it was a game-changer. After the presentation, they fielded questions from the audience. The depth of these questions showed how well the information was received and understood. I would recommend this presentation to all of the regionals. It was invaluable information for our businesses.”

The pair will be presenting a similar presentation on January 14 at The PPAI Expo 2019 in Las Vegas. More information on strategic foresight is available here, and the Strategic Foresight Playbook is available for download here. Regional associations or members who want to request the presentation should contact Anne Stone at AnneS@ppai.org.