Over the last year I have given talks around the world at events calling themselves competitive/market intelligence or foresight or business analytics or insight conferences and seminars. I`ve met many people during these events and had great discussions with them about what is going on in their countries and with their jobs and one thing is clear to me, whatever you call this field, it is definitely growing as more and more companies and government around the world are realising that for their programs and strategies to succeed will require that they develop systematic, integrated, and analytical approaches to understand the risks in the external environment forces that can affect their organizations success. They will have to stay ahead of the market and develop key insights on what is happening around them. While the need to understand these forces has existed for years, what has changed is the development of tools to better address these issues and, of course, the cost of failure.