Stay competitive in 2035: a scenario-based method to foresight in the design and manufacturing industry Reza Alizadeh and Leili Soltanisehat Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to envision the alternative futures of the design and manufacturing industry using an integrated foresight method based on scenario planning. Also, the authors aim at developing robust strategies for an enterprise that aims to be placed as a leading high- tech international design and manufacturing company in 2035. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed approach is created by integrating several foresight methods such as Delphi, scenario planning, MICMAC and cross-impact analysis. Findings – Automation and sustainable development are found as the fundamental driving forces in the design and manufacturing industry. Four scenarios based on these driving forces and expert knowledge are created: innovation adaptation, forced automation (business-as-usual), sustainable era and automationless scenarios. For the developed scenarios, a set of strategies are proposed by asking experts about the strategies which can be taken to make the enterprise competitive in all developed scenarios in 2035. The main macro-level outcome is that economic and technological drivers will be the most important factors for design and manufacturing, followed by environmental and social factors. Originality/value – The proposed method uses the strengths of traditional scenario planning but overcomes its weaknesses by suggesting a systematic process for scenario building and easy application. Keywords Strategy, Scenario planning, Foresight, Trend analysis, Design and manufacturing industry Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction The design and manufacturing industry faces different types of uncertainties, which are hard to forecast but may have a vital influence on the future. Practically, these can result in significant changes in the business. It is not possible to eliminate all such uncertainties, however, any high tech company that wants to stay competitive in 2035 needs to manage these uncertainties. One way to manage uncertainties is to identify change forces, different plausible scenarios and robust strategies (de Sousa Jabbour et al., 2018; Li, 2018; Matos and Jacinto, 2019; van Sluisveld et al., 2018). Neglecting the uncertainties can even result in missing the new chances opening up during significant transitions or socio-technical changes or even disappearance of company (Banuls and Salmeron, 2007b; Chermack, 2011; Godet, 2000; Popper, 2008; Varum and Melo, 2010). The major purpose of this article is to create an enhanced planning method for strategic planning and foresight, which can manage these changes. This is extremely motivated, considering the tremendous difficulties that the design and manufacturing industries will face in the subsequent years. Generally, to deal with these uncertainties, industries apply different scenarios to search the uncertainty around the future outcomes of possible events (Chermack, 2018; Daim et al., 2018; Schwarz et al., 2019), but because of the rate and extent of changes, the precise Reza Alizadeh and Leili Soltanisehat are both based at the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA. Received 1 June 2019 Revised 14 December 2019 19 December 2019 Accepted 19 December 2019 DOI 10.1108/FS-06-2019-0048 © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1463-6689 j FORESIGHT j