It’s just like a radar screen — we’re in the centre, and incoming things are plotted on the screen around us, showing the direction they’re coming from, and how close they are.

The screen is divided into four zones, representing where the things are coming from:

  1. Agency: internal issues to do with your team, your processes, your finances and more.
  2. Market: issues to do with clients, prospects, competitors, suppliers.
  3. Societal: issues to do with politics, the economy, culture, and other things that relate to the outside world, psychologically close to your operations.
  4. Global: issues to do with global politics, trade, the global economy, climate, and more. Things that seem psychologically distant to your operations.

The key issues identified by this edition of the Agency Radar Report are shown as sticky notes on the screen, in the zone they relate to.

They are shown closer to the centre if they are a ‘proximate’ issues, that is if their impact will be close in time and/or higher likelihood. They are shown further out towards the edges if they are perceived to be further away in the future or lower likelihood.

Finally, the issues are colour coded into Themes. We identify key themes of upcoming issues for agencies, with the key issues highlighted on the screen but more detail about all the issues in the theme provided later in the report. This allows an ‘at a glance’ view, with more context available by reading on.