Approach for capturing the impact of external trends in SME based on change dimensions

Within this work an approach will be described, which identifies and quantifies the impact of external trends on the individual divisions of a company. The core of this approach is the so called "dimensions of change". On one hand they create an interface between the company's divisions and the required measures, on the other hand they can be used as a starting point for the evaluation of the as-is changeability SME. This approach contains seven steps and will be established in the strategic corporate planning. Thereby, the approach supports the integration of foresight information in the planning of the corporate divisions to increase future robustness and changeability. The approach has been validated in the research project Vertumnus. The research presented is part of the project Vertumnus (www.vertumnus-projekt.de), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Framework Concept "Research for Tomorrow's Production" and managed by Projektträger Karlsruhe, Production and Manufacturing Technologies Division (PTKA-PFT).