Johnny Åkerholm: Is it safe to forecast on the basis of recent trends?

On 21 June 2011, NIB President Johnny Åkerholm spoke at the conference The Future 2020 that gathered business executives, researchers, politicians, international management consultants, to discuss the future of business management and consulting to discuss the issues of sustainable growth, ethics and moral, labour mobility and knowhow.

In his speech Mr Åkerholm discussed the uncertainty of basing economic forecasts on the current trends in the financial markets.

"The world economy experienced a period of good and stable growth up to the 2008 meltdown. This success was, to a large extent, supported by globalisation that created a win-win situation. Looking ahead, the openness of markets is one of many unknown factors which will shape our future. Continued openness is by no means certain," said Mr Åkerholm.

Here you can find a summary of NIB President's speech at the conference.

The conference was arranged in Helsinki by the Finnish Management Consultants Association (LJK ry) in co-operation with Small and Middle Enterprises Foundation (PKT-säätiö), the European Federation of Management Consultancies Associations FEACO and the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes ICMCI.