How do you prioritize industry trends?

1 Assess your current situation

The first step is to understand your current position and performance in the industry. You need to evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) in relation to the market, the customers, and the competitors. You also need to define your goals and objectives, and how they align with your vision and mission. This will help you identify the key drivers and challenges of your business, and the areas where you need to improve or innovate.

2 Scan the external environment

The next step is to scan the external environment and collect information about the industry trends that are relevant to your business. You can use various sources, such as industry reports, news articles, blogs, podcasts, social media, or customer feedback. You can also use tools, such as PESTEL analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, or scenario planning, to analyze the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors that affect the industry. You should look for trends that have a significant impact, potential, or uncertainty for your business.

3 Filter and prioritize the trends

The third step is to filter and prioritize the trends based on their importance and urgency for your business. You can use a matrix, such as the Eisenhower matrix, the impact-effort matrix, or the BCG matrix, to rank the trends according to their value and feasibility. It's essential to consider how the trend aligns with your goals and objectives, affects customer needs and expectations, influences your competitive advantage and differentiation, creates opportunities or threats for your business, and requires time, money, and resources to respond. Ultimately, you should focus on high-value and high-feasibility trends while avoiding low-value and low-feasibility ones.

4 Act on the trends

The final step is to act on the trends and implement them in your business strategy. You need to develop a plan of action that specifies the objectives, tasks, responsibilities, timelines, and metrics for each trend. You also need to communicate the plan to your stakeholders, such as your employees, customers, partners, and investors, and get their feedback and support. You should monitor and evaluate the results of your actions, and adjust your strategy accordingly. You should also review and update your trend analysis regularly, as the industry environment is dynamic and constantly changing.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?