Tomorrows Compass and the IMD Future Readiness Indicator: Companies and People

The IMD Future Readiness Indicator and Tomorrows Compass Discover both use the phrase "future readiness" in their names. They look at it from different places. The IMD Indicator looks at companies: how prepared a large organisation is for future change. Tomorrows Compass looks at people: how ready an individual is, skill by skill, for the work that is coming. Seeing which question each one answers helps a buyer pick the right tool, and shows where the two can inform each other.

What IMD measures

The IMD Future Readiness Indicator is published by the Center for Future Readiness at IMD Business School in Lausanne, led by Professor Howard Yu. It ranks large publicly listed companies within their industries, such as technology, pharmaceuticals and fashion, on how well prepared they are for future change. The results give executives a view of how their company compares with its industry peers.

The Indicator is built from a composite of public data on each company, covering areas such as financial strength, innovation, strategic partnerships, productivity, ESG performance and market expectations. IMD publishes the factors behind the ranking, and the Indicator is rightly respected as a serious strategic benchmark. When the question is "how prepared is our company for change compared with its industry peers, and how has that moved over time," the IMD Indicator is the right tool.

The IMD Indicator works at company level. Tomorrows Compass adds the people level: individual professionals, each with a score on a set of behavioural skills and development priorities for the role they are preparing for. The two units of analysis are different, which is exactly why they can complement each other.

What Tomorrows Compass measures

Tomorrows Compass Discover is a future-readiness assessment for individual professionals. You answer a self-report questionnaire about how you work, in about half an hour. It scores 12 skills organised into three skillsets (Dynamic Adaptability, Strategic Problem Solving, and Agile Collaboration), and gives each skill one of four strength bands: Development Priority, Baseline Strength, Established Strength, or Signature Strength. The 36-page Explorer report adds a behavioural preference layer based on the Enneagram. See the 12 skills for the full model.

Discover is a personal and team-level instrument. Its unit of analysis is the individual professional, and results can be aggregated for teams and cohorts. Its output is a development plan: this skill is currently a Development Priority in an area that matters for your role, and here is how to work on it over the next twelve months. It is not a company ranking, and it is not designed to be one.

Why the names overlap

Both tools use the phrase "future readiness" because both are about adaptability under change. The shared term is natural, because "future readiness" is a useful frame at several scales: national, organisational, team, and individual. A country can be more or less future-ready. A company can be more or less future-ready. A leadership team can be more or less future-ready. A specific senior leader can be more or less future-ready. All four statements are coherent. They are just not measuring the same thing or operating at the same scale.

The practical question for a buyer is which scale they are operating at:

If you are benchmarking a large company's readiness for change against its industry peers, or advising a board on long-horizon competitive strategy, the IMD Indicator is the right instrument.

If you are running a leadership development programme, building skills across a senior team, coaching a high-potential through a career transition, or planning development for a succession candidate, Tomorrows Compass Discover is the right instrument.

The two instruments tend to reach different audiences. The IMD Indicator is read by executives, strategy teams, boards and investors looking at company-level readiness. Discover is used by L&D leads, executive coaches, organisational development practitioners, and HR business partners working on people development. Both use "future readiness" as a frame because both care about the same underlying idea, at different levels.

Using them together

The pairing is a natural one. Company-level readiness depends in part on people: how quickly they adopt new technology, how well they collaborate across borders, how they handle uncertainty. An executive team that sees how future-ready companies in its industry compare can use aggregated Tomorrows Compass data to see whether its leaders' skills support its strategy, and where to invest in development. The IMD Indicator gives the company-level context; Tomorrows Compass gives the people-level picture.

The two are separate products from separate organisations, so combining them is a matter of interpretation rather than a technical integration. The value comes from asking both questions: how ready is the company, and how ready are its people?

Each tool works best at its own level. Company rankings are not designed to plan an individual's development, and individual skill scores are not designed to rank companies. Used at the right level, each makes the other more meaningful.

Starting with the right question

The choice of tool shapes the decision that follows. A board that wants to know how its company compares with industry peers needs company-level data, which the IMD Indicator provides. A leadership development programme that wants to build individual plans needs people-level data, which Tomorrows Compass provides. Each answers its own question well.

The simplest way to choose is to settle the unit of analysis up front: are we trying to understand a company, a team, or a specific person? Once that is clear, the right instrument follows, and it becomes easy to see where the other one adds context.

A worked example

Consider a Johannesburg-based consulting firm advising a large retail group on its five-year people strategy. The executive team wants two distinct things from the engagement.

The first need is industry context. How are the most future-ready companies in fashion and retail positioning themselves, and what does the IMD Indicator suggest sets them apart? This is an IMD question. The Indicator's industry ranking gives the executive team a benchmark and a set of reference companies to learn from.

The second need is people-level data. The group wants to fund a leadership development programme for its senior managers, and it needs to know which skills those managers should be developing to lead through the next five years of change. This is a Tomorrows Compass question. Aggregated Discover data across a cohort of senior managers produces a skills profile for the group. If Embracing Uncertainty and Cross-Cultural Collaboration show up as cohort-wide Development Priorities, that shapes the curriculum design and each manager's development plan.

The consulting firm uses both instruments, on different parts of the engagement. The IMD Indicator informs the strategy discussion with the board. The Discover data informs the curriculum design and individual coaching plans. Each instrument does the job it was built for, and together they connect company strategy to people development.

Methodology

The IMD Indicator uses a composite index built from public company data across several factors, and ranks companies within their industries. IMD publishes the factors behind the ranking.

Tomorrows Compass uses Phase A absolute scoring on a self-report questionnaire, with a 5-flag validity engine that produces a public response-quality verdict alongside the skill scores. The full methodology, including the maturity statement and the Phase A through B to C transition plan, is published at the methodology page. The current maturity statement is Provisional: instrument locked, pilot data collection in progress.

The two methods suit their different jobs: one benchmarks companies from public data, the other gives individuals a read on their own skills. Discover is a younger instrument with a transparently published maturity stage and a public transition plan. See Beyond Buzzwords for the full framework-credibility deep-dive.

Take the assessment

If you are looking at company-level readiness, the IMD Indicator is the right tool. If you are looking at individual or team readiness, take Tomorrows Compass Discover. Best Future Skills Assessments in 2026 is the companion landscape piece, placing both instruments in the wider context of future-readiness measurement and helping a buyer decide which level they are working at.

All methodology specifics referenced in this article reflect Tomorrows Compass's own framework, estimates, and modelling. Pilot data collection is in progress; figures should be read as directional rather than peer-normed. Updated as our pilot data matures.