In today’s fast-paced digital age, consumers have been adopting technology at a rapid pace, never seen before. They are just not looking for a high-quality product or service. They are looking for personalized offerings, forcing companies to bring in seismic shifts in how they run their operations.In addition to price and product, customer experience has evolved to be a key differentiator for quite some time now.
Organizations are thus looking to transform how they do business and create seamless customer journeys, keeping the customer at core. For instance, when it came to reordering cartridges, HP Instant Ink made a subtle shift from a reactive model of customers purchasing ink cartridges on a need basis to a proactive model. In this, customers could sign up for a plan, and once done; HP knew when the printers would run out of ink and ships them in advance, saving customers time and effort. Doing so not only makes customers more productive but also builds loyalty.
HP was able to create this customer centric model by adopting design thinking, keeping the customers’ needs at the core and designing around it. While it is easier said than done, the key question is, do businesses get a competitive advantage by combining design and customer experience? Is it worth the hype? Research shows that companies emphasizing design have fared significantly better than their peers who haven’t done so.
The secret sauce is to combine business and design, popularly known as ‘Business Design.’ It helps define a business’ economics, which are two-sided—the money coming in and the money it takes to create it. Business Design has already become the new rage, and it is undeniably the next big thing.
Defining Business Design
Business Design is a collaborative user-centric approach that seamlessly integrates design and management to assist businesses in crafting, strategizing, and delivering a viable business model based on user research, market analysis, strategy, and user experience.
The business model is the core of any business. With rapid changes in technology, market trends, and the emergence of start-ups, brick and mortar companies had to evolve exponentially on the innovation front. Failure to do so resulted in losses and furthermore, losing its relevance. Innovative business models with well-thought-out novel ideas are the need of the hour. This is where business design comes into the picture.
Where Business Design scores over Design Thinking
Business design is not the same as traditional or pure design thinking. Traditional design thinking aids in the creation of products that users adore. Business Design, on the other hand, is comprehensive. It assists organizations in developing a viable business model by quickly testing its riskiest assumptions against the market and designing products and services that thrive in the marketplace.
From creating user-centric products and services to bringing a new spin to traditional or pure design thinking, ‘Business Design’has the potential to develop viable business models and transform customer experience, defined by the consumers’ needs and preferences.Organizations can see significant benefits in the form of increased revenues from products or services, improved market positioning, higher customer loyalty, and fewer customer complaints. It also helps build a stronger brand identity for your company, faster time to market for new products and services.
In conclusion, Business Design is about seeing things through a different lens to allow managers, strategists, and designers to think more creatively and develop new ideas. It enables testing the viability of new approaches to generate more unique perspectives or outcomes. And companies that can blend the two will undoubtedly have the edge over those who are yet to tap into the possibilities of Business Design.
(The author Priyank Kapadia is Head of Digital Practice at Accolite Digital and the views expressed in the article are his own)
