Scenario Planning for a London Direct-to-Consumer Cosmetics Brand
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Build four distinct scenarios from regulatory and trust forces for a cosmetics brand, then earn your verifiable certificate.
The scenario
GlowLondon is a four-year-old London cosmetics company that sells exclusively through its own website and acquires almost all of its customers through unpaid and paid content on Instagram and TikTok. Its margins and growth depend heavily on cheap social reach and on environmental and 'clean beauty' claims that UK regulators are beginning to scrutinise.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
How can GlowLondon prepare for an uncertain regulatory and consumer landscape over the next three years using scenario planning rather than a single forecast?
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Distinguish critical uncertainties from predetermined trends when framing a strategic problem
- Construct internally consistent, distinct scenarios using the two-by-two matrix method
- Derive observable signposts that indicate which future is materialising
- Identify robust, no-regret strategic moves that perform across multiple futures
- Communicate foresight work so a non-specialist founder can act on it immediately
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Scenario Planning
Apply scenario planning to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Uncertainty Analysis
Apply uncertainty analysis to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Strategic Thinking
Apply strategic thinking to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Presentation
Apply presentation to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Strategy Consultant
This challenge mirrors a real consulting engagement: scoping a client's uncertainty, structuring it into scenarios, and delivering actionable recommendations a founder can act on, which is the core of entry-level strategy consulting work.
This challenge sharpens
- scenario-planning
- strategic-thinking
- presentation
Corporate Foresight Analyst
Foresight teams inside companies build scenarios and signpost dashboards to keep leadership ahead of regulatory and market shifts; this challenge practises exactly that workflow on a live consumer-brand risk landscape.
This challenge sharpens
- scenario-planning
- uncertainty-analysis
- strategic-thinking
Brand Strategy Manager
Consumer brands need managers who can weigh regulatory and channel risk and translate it into product and marketing decisions; this challenge develops that judgment using a realistic cosmetics-brand case.
This challenge sharpens
- uncertainty-analysis
- strategic-thinking
- presentation