In a rapidly changing world, organisations need to understand emerging trends and recognise when it is time to change course. Whether you work in business, government or the non-profit sector, identifying change early and exploring its implications can help you make better strategic decisions. This guide offers a practical, step-by-step approach to trend analysis, with examples throughout. It shows how to identify and interpret trends, assess their relevance and use the findings as a starting point for strategic foresight.

1. Why trend analysis?

The importance of trend analysis is easy to explain: organisations and governments do not operate in a vacuum, but in an environment that is constantly in motion. Successful organisations are best able to recognise signals of change and turn them into opportunities or timely adjustments. Companies use trend analysis to stay ahead of competitors, to innovate and to identify risks in good time. Governments, by contrast, use trend analysis not to compete, but to adapt policy and services to the changing needs of citizens and society.

A trend analysis is therefore the foundation of good policy, strategy development and innovation. It prevents you from acting only reactively, and gives your organisation direction so that it can steer proactively.

2. What is a trend?

A trend is a sustained pattern of change observed over time. Unlike a hype or a one-off event, a trend tends to persist and is supported by data or clear signals. Trends help us understand how the world is changing, but they do not tell us exactly what will happen next: their pace, direction and implications can change as they interact with other developments.

Trends can be quantitative (supported by figures: demographic data, market shares, scientific data), but also qualitative (observations, interviews, changes in behaviour). Trend analysis looks at established patterns of change. Horizon scanning broadens the picture by also looking for emerging issues and early signals that may not yet form a clear trend.

3. Classifying trends by scale

Trends can be divided by scale. For practical purposes, this guide distinguishes three levels, from global to local. These levels help you explore how wider changes play out in a specific context. We use macro, meso and micro as shorthand for them:

Example: digitalisation at three levels

• Macro: Worldwide, the use of AI and cloud computing is growing.
• Meso: In the Netherlands, the government is developing policy on digital infrastructure and cybersecurity.
• Micro: More and more local residents work from home via Teams or Zoom, and local web shops are growing fast.

Example: energy transition

• Macro: Internationally, climate agreements force countries to become more sustainable.
• Meso: The Netherlands sets CO₂ reduction targets and encourages wind farms.
• Micro: In villages, residents jointly install solar panels and set up energy cooperatives.

Distinguishing scale levels is very useful for gaining insight: a major development at the top can have local consequences, or the other way around. By considering them together you see the bigger picture and the implications for your own work or research question.

4. DESTEP: categorising trends by domain

DESTEP stands for Demographic, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Ecological and Political-institutional. It is a practical framework for scanning and structuring trends systematically. Similar frameworks exist, such as STEEP, PESTLE (which adds “Legal”) and PESTELD; the principle is the same: look broadly to avoid blind spots.

By collecting and organising trends by DESTEP domain, you gain insight into all the factors that can directly or indirectly influence your organisation or policy area.

5. Links between scale and domain

A trend is rarely limited to one scale or domain. They often interlock. You can see this clearly in a number of practical examples:

Example 1: ageing, labour and technology

• Demographic: More older people, a smaller labour supply.
• Economic: The labour market may tighten, with upward pressure on wages and shortages in care and technology.
• Technological: Growing use of robots and AI, partly to compensate for labour shortages.
• Political: Policy that encourages people to work longer or to recruit more workers from abroad.

Population ageing may put pressure on labour supply. Depending on the sector and policy context, organisations might respond through automation, changes in working practices, recruitment or investment in skills, and these responses can in turn raise new policy questions. Looking across scale and domain helps you identify possible feedback loops, tensions and unintended consequences, not just direct effects.

Example 2: digitalisation and inclusion

• Technological: AI and big data platforms are growing fast.
• Socio-cultural: New ways of working emerge, but also a risk of digital exclusion.
• Economic: New business models, shifting jobs.
• Political: Tightening of privacy legislation, digitalisation of public services.

Rapid technological developments call for social and legal adjustments, influence economic opportunities and risks, and affect inclusion and equality.

Example 3: climate and innovation

• Ecological: Climate change forces substantial CO₂ reductions.
• Economic: Growth of jobs in sustainable sectors, green investments.
• Technological: Innovation in energy storage and renewable sources.
• Political: Legislation, subsidies and international agreements.

This interdependence makes it clear that sectors and domains depend on each other. These connections make it essential to look beyond individual sectors and policy domains.

6. A trend analysis in three steps

A good trend analysis goes beyond recognising trends. It consists of three steps, each with its own challenges and tips: scanning for trends and signals, interpreting and organising the evidence, and assessing strategic implications.

Step 1: Scan for trends and signals

Start broad and open-minded. Combine different methods:

• Desk research: List existing reports, scientific publications and policy studies. Think of general data sources and sector reports.
• Interviews and workshops: Talk to internal and external experts and stakeholders. People from outside the sector in particular can help challenge tunnel vision and bring fresh insights and signals.
• Crowdsourcing and trend watching: Pick up signals from practice, through surveys, field observations or trend workshops. Start with striking consumer behaviour, new technologies or emerging themes in the public debate.

This way you build a broad evidence base rather than a one-sided one.

Step 2: Interpret and organise the evidence

Once you have collected trends, add structure:

• Use DESTEP, PESTLE or STEEP: Check that you have covered all societal domains. Organise trends and link them to the relevant domains.
• Scale levels: For each trend, ask yourself how it plays out at global, national, regional and local levels. This shows more quickly how impact flows from top to bottom or the other way around.
• Contextual versus transactional: Distinguish between trends you have no direct influence on (context, such as legislation or globalisation) and trends you can steer (transactional: customer behaviour, product development).
• Three Horizons model: Use the framework to explore how trends and emerging practices relate to the dominant system today (H1), the innovations that may sustain or transform it (H2), and the seeds of a desired future system already visible in the present (H3). Rather than assigning each trend to a single horizon, examine how it affects the relationships between them.

This structure makes trends easier to work with, helps reduce blind spots and can reveal connections that might otherwise go unseen.

Step 3: Assess strategic implications

Now it is time to weigh trends:

• Impact x uncertainty: Place trends on two axes: how much impact can they have, and how uncertain is their course? Ask: impact on what, for whom and over which time horizon?
  • High impact, high uncertainty: Use as core input for scenarios.
  • High impact, lower uncertainty: Use as a planning assumption, while continuing to monitor the evidence.
  • Low impact, high uncertainty: Monitor, as it may become relevant in the future.
  • Lower impact, lower uncertainty: Give lower priority unless the development is particularly relevant to your organisation, mandate or stakeholders.
• Work with workshops or a Delphi exercise: Use facilitated workshops to compare assessments and discuss disagreements. Where a more structured expert consultation is useful, consider a Delphi exercise with repeated rounds and feedback between rounds. Involving diverse stakeholders can help challenge assumptions and build support.

This evaluation step helps you deploy resources where they matter most and avoid getting lost in noise or hype.

7. Practical tips and pitfalls

• Use sticker voting to make impact and uncertainty visible in workshops.
• Recognise the difference between trends and hypes: trends are structural, hypes are temporary.
• Take counter-trends into account: opposing movements can play out at the same time (for example digitalisation and an analogue revival).
• Involve people from inside and outside the sector to bring fresh perspectives and uncover blind spots.
• Look at the whole picture: combine scale and domain levels.

8. When is trend analysis alone enough, and when do you need more?

Trend analysis is the foundation of other foresight methods. It can be sufficient on its own when:

• Your issue is clear-cut, for example when you only want insight into concrete developments.
• Uncertainty is relatively low and developments are fairly stable.
• You can translate your insights directly into actions and policy.
• You work within regular monitoring, for example as part of a monthly report.

Example: A municipality wants to know how demographic trends affect housing demand. A trend analysis is enough for short-term policy measures.

You need more when:

• There is a lot of uncertainty: technology, behaviour, geopolitical shifts.
• Complex and conflicting outcomes are possible.
• The horizon is long (10+ years) or the question concerns strategic innovation.
• Concrete implementation and a step-by-step rollout are needed (roadmapping).

Example: A social services department wants to respond to digitalisation and changing citizen needs. Scenarios and a roadmap are needed for strategy development and support.

9. From trend analysis to strategy: scenarios, wind-tunnelling and roadmapping

Three foresight methods help you move from your trend analysis to strategy:

9.1 Scenarios: navigating between uncertainties

Trends with high impact and high uncertainty are strong candidates for scenario planning. Develop several plausible futures in which different trends play the leading role. Think, for example, of scenarios about technological breakthroughs, disruptive social movements or a changed geopolitical context. Scenarios invite you to think outside the box and not to fixate on a single image of the future.

9.2 Wind-tunnelling: testing strategies

Wind-tunnelling is the step in which you hold existing or planned policy or strategies up against the scenarios. Does your approach prove robust under different circumstances? Are products or policies still relevant in every scenario? Where are the vulnerabilities? This insight helps you adjust in time or have alternatives ready.

9.3 Roadmapping: timeline and action

With roadmapping you translate chosen strategies into a flexible plan full of milestones and decision points. Roadmaps give you a structured grip so that you know not only what you want now, but also, and above all, which steps to take purposefully in the coming years. By updating periodically on the basis of fresh trends and practical insights, you keep your flexibility and keep your strategy adaptable as circumstances change.

10. In summary: trend analysis as a foundation

A good trend analysis is not an end in itself. It is an iterative process in which you scan, interpret, organise and assess trends for their relevance to your question. Combining scale levels and domains (for example with DESTEP) and involving stakeholders lays a solid foundation for any future-oriented question. Scenarios, wind-tunnelling and roadmapping then help you translate those insights into robust strategy and action.