How E.ON Drives the Global Energy Transition Through Foresight

Thomas Boermans remembers arriving to present E.ON’s early foresight work to the board and learning that the topic had nearly disappeared from the agenda. The invitation now came with a challenge: convince the room that it was worth hearing. A few minutes into the presentation, questions turned to his background and the team’s experience. He realised the board wanted to understand both the purpose of the work and the people behind it.

The eventual positive response made that meeting a memorable moment. In this episode of Innovation Rockstars, E.ON’s Head of Foresight joins Dr. Christian Mühlroth to explain the work that followed. His account shows how a team can move beyond supplying interesting information and become useful to people making strategic choices. It also includes an honest admission: the first idea for helping the innovation teams did not offer them much they needed.

A clear direction still leaves difficult choices

Boermans describes the energy transition as an established direction with many unanswered questions. Which services will customers want? Where could disruption come from? Which opportunities deserve a serious commitment rather than a small investment in everything?

His team’s task is to maintain an evolving view of those questions. A single study cannot do that indefinitely.

He highlights sustainability, convenience and resilience as guiding themes in the interview. Sustainability includes how value chains work. Convenience concerns how easily people and businesses can use energy services. Resilience brings attention to the ability of infrastructure to cope with disruption.

The themes become useful when they help teams assess specific choices. Their purpose is to organise discussion, rather than settle every question about technologies, products or markets in advance. Foresight has to connect that broad view with the decisions different parts of the business face.

Stop offering the innovation team more ideas

At first, the foresight team thought it could pass promising ideas to innovation colleagues. That seemed logical: a group looking at the future should have useful suggestions about what to develop next.

The problem was that innovation teams already had ideas. Joint deep dives did not fully solve the issue either. Boermans found that foresight could become absorbed in the teams’ work without adding a sufficiently different perspective.

The more valuable role emerged through discussion. Innovation colleagues wanted to test their ideas against company strategy and a shared view of the future. That connection could strengthen the case for an initiative inside the organisation.

This changed the working relationship. Foresight could help explain why an idea belonged in the portfolio and how it related to wider developments. Understanding that internal need mattered more than insisting on the team’s original offer.

Look for the reasons behind a signal

E.ON’s scanning approach, as Boermans describes it, begins broadly with sources including media, academic work, industry information and venture activity. The team then narrows its attention according to relevance and potential significance.

The next step goes beyond recording what happened. Who is acting? Why are they making that decision? What resources or influence do they have? What relationships might help or hinder a development?

“It is important to first, without judging, understand why people do things or make certain decisions.”

That understanding gives information strategic meaning. An emerging field may become more consequential when organisations with substantial capabilities begin supporting it. The task is to investigate those relationships before forming an opinion.

Discussion then broadens the evidence base. Boermans describes exchanges with regulatory, strategy, innovation and R&D colleagues, alongside a foresight circle involving network, digital and technology expertise. The resulting view is tested through several perspectives before reaching senior decision-makers.

Give the insight somewhere to go

Boermans calls the recurring outputs of the work “anchor products”. These include the trend radar and the team’s core beliefs about the energy transition. Workshops and presentations create occasions for people to examine them together.

Reports alone are insufficient. For supervisory board discussions, he describes a compact document supported by a presentation and conversation. The immediate outcome may be a shift in understanding rather than an instruction to launch a project the next morning.

He also asks for feedback explicitly. That helps the team assess whether its work was useful rather than assuming that distributing information achieved the intended effect.

A portfolio workshop provides a more concrete example. The team compared companies in the venture portfolio with the foresight view and corporate strategy. That exercise helped identify concentrations, gaps and areas worth reconsidering. It supported recommendations; the interview does not establish a financial return from the workshop.

Work at both ends of the organisation

Boermans deliberately connects with innovation and business teams as well as the board. Each side wants confidence that the other has engaged.

Strategy teams want to know whether senior leaders share the perspective behind a recommendation. Board members want reassurance that the work has been discussed with people close to the business. Maintaining both relationships gives the conversation a stronger foundation.

He is careful about the programme’s maturity. At the time of the interview, not everything was structurally embedded. More workshops, portfolio analysis and external relationships remained part of the plan.

His second memorable innovation moment was quieter than the board presentation. During the venture portfolio workshop, he realised the approach was helping people work through a real problem:

“Hey, this is working!”

That reaction captures his practical standard for foresight. A credible view of the future matters because it helps colleagues understand their options and make better-connected choices. The team earns its place by learning what those colleagues need and creating a conversation they can use.