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The Power
Of Strategic Design Thinking: Four Principles For Your Business
Strategic design thinking
creates great opportunities for
cross-functionally-excellent designers with a strategic aptitude of a
creative
→
Business
Architect
and a
→
Master
of
Business
Synergies
.
By Rakia Reinolds
Strategic design thinking has one single goal: to
understand and solve a problem for its consumer. This method is applied to
the design of intangible services and processes, an idea we have become
familiar with in the new "Age of Experience."
The current generation of consumers has developed an intolerance for
inauthenticity, which means that brands need to shift their thinking from
traditional to thoughtful. The tide is turning in the media and
communications industry: now, it's about focusing on the truth, or what I
like to call the “story behind the glory.” My job is to make sure our
clients have as authentic of a brand voice as possible.
A recent global study released by Cohn & Wolfe found that nearly nine out of
10 consumers are willing to take action to reward a brand for its authentic
approach to marketing. Despite the fact that this strategy is a sure way to
amplify their messages, many businesses poorly execute these new practices
of engagement, which creates a proverbial slump that lacks creativity,
direction and innovation.
As an entrepreneur who is constantly searching for opportunities to grow and
exploring potential programs to add to my growth, I turned to my friend Dr.
Natalie Nixon, Director of the Strategic Design MBA program at Philadelphia
University. Formulated to incubate a new wave of hybrid thinking, the
program's focus is on trying to understand the experience of your brand
through the perspective of the people who are buying it.
Natalie shared the four main keys to implementing a strategic design
thinking model to your business structure:
1. Go beyond the quantitative data, and seek qualitative feedback. In order
to know what motivates your audience to take action, you have to filter
through the one-size-fits-all data approach to truly understand who they are
and what their needs require. “Empathy education is at the core of strategic
design thinking,” advises Dr. Nixon. “Companies have to reach beyond the
structured, quantitative statistical research that businesses often rely on.
It is interacting with consumers to understand their desires, and then
customizing the experience in a remarkable way.”
2. Apply lateral thinking. Sometimes businesses get bogged down by the
rinse-and-repeat method of the same practices. To drive fresh solutions, it
is vital that we look across industries and harvest new sources of
inspiration. “To see your business with new eyes, open yourself to the
practices of opposing industries – for example, if you work in beauty,
attend a tech conference in order to design a new strategy,” suggests Dr.
Nixon.
3. Prototype experiences. It is easy to wrap our minds around the "look and
feel" model of prototyping when a fashion designer makes a prototype of a
dress. But it's a lot more difficult to quantify experiences that don't fit
within our concrete sensory perception. Applying prototyping is about trying
to understand the experience of your brand through the perspective of the
people who are buying it. How do you prototype an intangible experience in
today's information economy? “Make it an active experience – we want people
to ask lots of questions and come up with a range of insights,” advises Dr.
Nixon.
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Business Design Defined
The two components of a
→
Business
design are:
❶
→
Business Model
❷
Business
Processes
Business designs describe different possible
configurations of a business idea, how this idea adds value, and how it is
embodied in
distinctive
→
capabilities to create
→
Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
.
Strategic
Business Design
What
Is Strategic Business Design
Strategic business design is becoming more
important in an increasingly competitive global market with rapid technology
and product cycles. Strategic design breakthroughs can help you
stand out from the competition not just for a short while, but
lengthily.
Strategic business design is about
application of future-oriented design
principles and creation of
"big-picture" future-oriented
business growth strategies
in order to increase an organization’s
innovative and competitive qualities.
By
bridging research,
→
Systemic Innovation
,
design. and management in a
holistic
and
→
Synergistic
way, strategic design helps to create an
innovative business model,
identify promising strategic opportunities for action, and redefines how
opportunities and
problems are to be approached in future.
Strategic Business Design vs. Traditional Design
Strategic business design deals with a "big
picture", traditional design deals with a "small picture".
Traditional definitions of design tend to
focus on creating discrete solutions − be it a
product, a service, a process, or customer experience.
Strategic business design is about applying
some of the principles of traditional design and
futures thinking to "big picture"
systemic challenges like a
balanced business system, a
business model, and
business growth.
Strategic business design is
as an effective way to bridge innovation,
research, management and design based
on the analysis of external and
internal trends and data. It defines how strategic challenges are to be
approached, helps deliver more complete,
harmonized, and resilient business systems, and identifies
entrepreneurial opportunities for
action.
→
How To
Discover Opportunities
The discipline is mostly practiced by design agencies or by internal
development departments. Businesses are the main consumers of strategic
design, but the public, political and not-for-profit sectors are also making
increasing use of the discipline.
Its applications are varied, yet often aim to strengthen one of the
following: product branding, product development, corporate identity,
corporate branding, operating and business models, and service delivery.
Strategic design has become increasingly crucial in recent years, as
businesses and organisations compete for a share of today’s global and
fast-paced marketplace.
Anticipate and Drive Change
You must
not only anticipate change, but drive it
to survive in today’s rapidly changing world. If you don’t, your
products and services will lose
market share to those who do.
"There have been many examples of strategic
design breakthroughs over the years and in an increasingly competitive
global market with rapid product cycles, strategic design is becoming more
important.”[2]
Business Architect
In today's knowledge- and innovation-driven
complex economy,
→
Smart
Business Architects
are in growing demand. They are
cross-functionally excellent people who can tie several silos of
business development expertise together, create
→
synergies,
design winning
business model and a
→
Balanced
Business System
,
a
→
Continuous Improvement
Firm
and
→
Systemic Innovation
strategies,
and then
→
lead
people who will put their plans into action...
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