Design Thinking is a customer-focused problem-solving approach that involves empathy, defining problems from the customer's perspective, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing. Various companies like Nordstrom, Bank of America, and Starbucks have successfully used Design Thinking to develop new products and services by deeply understanding customer needs through methods like observation and interviews. The Design Thinking process helps organizations be more innovative and better solve problems.

1. Design Thinking for Business
Dr Naveen Kumar R
School of Management
Kristu Jayanti College

2. Introduction
• Design thinking is a systemic, intuitive, customer-focused problem-
solving approach that organizations can use to respond to rapidly
changing environments and to create maximum impact.
• Understand your audience
• Bring design to the executive table
• Design in real time
• Act quickly

3. Introduction
• Developing an understanding of behavior and needs that goes beyond
what people are doing right now to what they will need in the future
and how to deliver that. The best way to develop this understanding is
to spend time with people.
• “Concepting,” iterating, and testing. First start with pen and paper,
sketching out concepts. Then quickly put these into rough
prototypes—with an emphasis on quickly. Get feedback, refine, and
test again.

4. Meaning
• Is both an ideology and a process; its all about solving complex
problems in a user centric way.
• Importance of Innovation in Today's Business Landscape
• As a way of taking the processes and approaches that designers use
and applying them to problems.

5. Problem
• Is difficult or impossible to solve because of:
Incomplete
Contradictory and changing requirements that are often difficult to
recognize.
Focuses on customer.
Logic, imagination, intuition and systemic reasoning to explore the
possibilities of what could be, and to create desired outcomes that
benefit the end user.

6. Designer Mindset
• A design mindset is not problem focused
• Its solution focused
• Action oriented
• It involves both analysis & imagination.

7. NORDSTROM
• The most customer-centric companies in the world. This was evident when they were creating their
new in-store sunglass app.
• Rather than take the standard approach used by many large organizations before them (pick a
solution and spend lots of money), Nordstrom applied Design Thinking. A small team from
Nordstrom spent a full week in their flagship store and leveraged real customers to help build the
app.
• They started off by building a paper version of the app in-store and received immediate feedback
from customers passing through. Based on the feedback, they iterated and then showed that new
prototype to customers, and so on. At the end of the week, they had produced a fully functioning
app that customers actually wanted.
Here are some of the insights they gathered:
• Customers wanted a way to compare photos of themselves with different sunglasses on (in real-
time)
• Customers wanted to have the option to zoom in on pictures
• Customers wanted to tag each image and also link them to the sunglass model number

8. BANK OF AMERICA
• Bank of America was looking for a way to increase the use of their savings
accounts by customers. They applied the design thinking methodology and started
engaging with customers and uncovered that people liked the act of saving more
than the actual amount they save.
For example, customers would get the same good feeling if they deposited $50 a
month compared to $600 at the end of the year.
• From this insight Bank of America developed the round-up concept, a product that
allows customers to save with every transaction that they make. Customers, as a
result, are able to get that same good feeling after every transaction. The results
were staggering with Bank of America gaining over 10 million new customers and
$1.8 billion in savings for them.

9. STARBUCKS
• The food and beverage industry was experiencing a drop in sales and poor
margins. Starbucks decided to interview hundreds of customers to better
understand what they expected from their coffee shops. The predominant insight
gained from these interactions was that customers actually wanted an atmosphere
that provided a sense of belonging and relaxation.
• Building on these insights, Starbucks positioned round tables strategically to make
solo coffee drinkers more comfortable and less self-conscious.

10. Nike
• Nike was finding it difficult to become a prominent brand amongst the
skateboarding community. They struggled to gain the same level of support
given to brands like DC and Globe.
• Nike decided to engage skateboarders in the design process. During
conversations with skateboarders they examined what the community was
looking for in a skateboard company and also attitudes towards Nike. As a
result of this approach, the team gained a better overall understanding of the
needs and wants of the skateboarding community.
• Nike released the Nike Dunk SB after applying learnings from their
customer engagement along with skateboard insiders in their design team.
Since releasing its Nike SB line of shoes, Nike has experienced tremendous
success within the skateboarding culture.

11. ORAL B
• A famous example of this is a project run by IDEO for Oral B. They took the
observation approach and uncovered a game-changing insight. The assumption
with toothbrushes for children is that they should be like adult toothbrushes but
smaller and skinnier, due to the fact that adults have big hands and kids have small
hands. Makes sense right?
• However, through observations they found that when kids were brushing their
teeth they were using their fist and holding their toothbrushes too far up resulting
in them hitting their own faces as they brushed. From this insight, a solution was
identified that kids require fat squishy toothbrushes. As a consequence of this
discovery, Oral B had the best selling kids toothbrush in the world for 18 months.

12. GE HEALTHCARE
• Having an MRI Scan is generally not a pleasant experience for adults, let alone children.
Children often struggle to stay still during the process (often crying) given the frightening
experience. The Chief Designer at GE Imaging Machines was shocked by this and felt as
though something had to change. By applying Design Thinking, he decided to observe
children going through the scanner while also having conversations with not just children
but doctors and educators. Through the conversations and observations he found that
rather than being seen as an elegant piece of technology, the MRI Scanner was seen as a
scary machine by young children.
• As a result, CT Pirate Island Adventure was created. The MRI scanner was made to look
like a pirate ship and it transformed the traumatic experience into a kid’s adventure story
where the patient had the starring role. Prior to the transformation, approximately 80% of
children needed to be sedated prior to getting their scan and after the change this dropped
to 10%. The MRI scanner transformed from a terrifying experience to a creative journey
for children.

13. Design Thinking Process
• Empathize
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test

14. Empathize
• Getting to know the user (problems they face)
“you observe & engage with the people using your product to better
understand them on an emotional and psychological level.
Tools:
• Group Interview Obstacles:
• As-Is-Scenario map * Skipping the empathy
• Mind Mapping * Too many assumptions
• Empathy Map

15. Define
• You define the user’s needs and problem.
“You gather all your insights from the empathize phase and start to make sense of them.
• Armed with data synthesis
• Able to create a problem statement
• Crafting a Human-Centered Problem Statement
Tools:
Obstacles:
• Story boarding * Not framing the problem in a user centric way
• Personal
• Prioritization Matrix
• Big idea Vignettes

16. Ideate
• To get creative
• Begin generating ideas for innovative solutions
• Divergent Thinking vs. Convergent Thinking
“No idea is a bad idea”
Tools: Obstacles:
* Time boxing * Not thinking out of the box
2 Steps: * Brain storming * Not deferring judgment
• Create * Sketching
• Decide * Dot voting

17. Prototype
• Turn idea into tangible products a rough model or sketch
• A scaled down version of your product
• Depend on how users respond your prototype
• May be rejected, reconstructed or accepted
Tools: Obstacles:
* Adding too much complexity
• Pencil & Paper * Spending too much time or money
• 3D Modeling software
• Anything you have available

18. Test (Importance of Testing for Validation and
Improvement)
• Test your solutions
• Invite users to test out and respond to your prototype
• Their responses will inform whether you move forward or kill your idea
before investing additional resources
• User-Centered Evaluation
• Learning from Feedback
Obstacles:
• Lacking the availability to pivot
• Not listening

19. Innovation
• Improved User-Centric Solutions
• Faster Problem Solving
• Increased Collaboration

20. Time-Consuming Process
• Balancing Creativity and Practicality
• Resistance to Change

21. Integrating Design Thinking into Business
• Incorporating Design Thinking in Product Development
• Design Thinking in Process Improvement
• Design Thinking for Customer Experience Enhancement

22. Successful Implementation
• Foster a Culture of Creativity
• Encourage Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Embrace Failure as a Learning Opportunity

23. Evolving Trends in Design Thinking
• Integration of Technology (AI, VR, etc.)
• Design Thinking's Role in Sustainable Business Practices

24. Case Study
• Tata Trusts, through its Project Druv aims to increase access to
informative internet content for the rural underserved populations.
Druv is a set-top box that enables rural users to connect to internet via
TV screens and streams informative content on hygiene, nutrition,
child care, women health, beauty etc. At the time, Druv was
moderately successful, with concerns like low sustained usage,
misperception as children’s device and competition from the mobile
internet; hence the team wished to figure strategic future directions for
Druv.

25. Take inns
CHALLENGE
• How to increase adoption and sustained usage of an internet device in rural Rajasthan
OUTCOME
• Strategic solutions crafted, for different time horizons – short, medium, long-term. These were
aimed at bolstering the installation and early exploration phase, strategically relooking
partnerships & future technology transformation.
SERVICES
• Business Process Design, Social Impact Program Design, Customer Experience Design

26. • Sustained usage and adoption of a solution depend on the end-to-end
experience of the service delivered to the user.
• To understand the as-is user experience and mapped the aspects of
content and technology to user needs at individual, family & society
level.

27. Based on these insights identified three
opportunity areas:
• Give women safe spaces to learn and not feel judged
• Enable exploration of content in a group setting to create shared
learning
• A DIY hack for troubleshooting

28. A variety of solutions with different time
horizons
• Detailed solutions to improve the customer onboarding experience,
content curation, and user interface (with an implementation horizon
of 0-6 months)
• Directions for rehaul of org partnerships with telecom sector, content
partners, NGO partners, etc (implementation horizon of 6-12 months)
• Ideas for core technology alternatives (12-24 months)

29. Now, you are a design thinker and what would be
your approach in handling such case?