Design thinking: An approach to a successful business model

Helping brands tell compelling stories and reshaping business models, design thinking is assisting customer experiences. The human-centered innovation process is being applied to a wide range of challenges.

The systematic approach to problem solving, that allows brands to come up with new ideas that organically speak to their customers, is the not-so new kid on the block, say experts, as it unshackles corporate teams from outdated business models and allows companies to be truly innovative.

“Design thinking goes beyond traditional business models and focusses on customer empathy and real-world experiments. By focussing on these two key components, one is able to uncover unarticulated needs,” says Peyush Agarwal, Global Strategic Design Director at DesignIt, a strategic design firm acquired by Wipro.

As more corporates apply formal design processes to non-design initiatives including marketing, chief marketing officers are seeking out creative design professionals for collaboration.

Google, Facebook and Amazon collectively increased the number of designers they employ by 65 per cent in one year.

Brands are increasingly using design thinking to formulate, iterate and push forward the best solutions. Suparna Menon, Partner — Digital Strategy, Customer Engagement Design, IBM Client Innovation Centre, IBM India says, “Given the complexities of the diverse interaction opportunities that brands have today with their customers, its critical to have the right insights about them in order to be able to truly empathise and understand their needs, even before they do.”

More creative

Design thinking, he adds, places end-users at the centre of the design process and enables teams “to collaborate and work efficiently through a creative process of convergence and divergence to transform customer insights into breakthrough ideas that re-imagine and deliver positive business impact.”

Wipro Digital’s Agarwal points out design helps attract attention not just towards marketing, “it can also enhance the quality of your message. If a company advertises on the same spot on the street, at a regular place, people get accustomed to it and simply stop reading the message.”

Design thinking, on the other hand, can deliver deep insights into customer needs and wants. This was noticed at the recently-concluded Dell Designathon, an initiative by tech major Dell, which reaches out to 2D and 3D design enthusiasts from various industries to showcase their prototype on a designated theme.

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