Design thinking for business innovation and growth

The business world is ever-changing as technological advancements and trends are constantly arising. This means that, for businesses to succeed, they need to focus their efforts on innovation to provide something worthwhile to customers - using methodology such as ‘Design Thinking’. 

Design thinking is an ideology that encourages companies to redesign and rethink their business functions. The concept emerged in the wake of continuous business transformation to help companies keep up with the demands of the industry.

This article discusses how design thinking complements business innovation and long-term growth overall.

The positive relationship between business innovation and design thinking

Design thinking helps businesses solve complex problems by taking a ‘human-centred’ approach. It encourages companies to look beyond the creation of new products and services by emphasising customer needs and desires. In doing so, innovators can integrate the possibilities of technology with the needs of people and requirements for success.

It balances human consideration with business feasibility and viability. It involves identifying logical solutions that solve existing customer pain points and evaluating them against technological and economic considerations. Only by assessing ideas against current trends and market shifts can a business determine whether a strategy is a good or bad fit.

There are several processes involved in design thinking, and these include:

• Emphasise: Understanding your customer, audience, and target market
• Design: Specifying your business requirements and challenges
• Ideate: Brainstorming new, innovative ideas that focus on bettering user experience
• Solutions: Creating solutions by looking at the prototype

This process enables business professionals to consider consumer behaviour and industry trends when fostering new innovative ideas. The process would lead to the creation of ideal, innovative solutions to complex business challenges.

Innovation means nothing if it doesn’t generate income and add to the company’s growth. Since design thinking encourages empathy with the target customer using company products and services, they will be more user-centric, making purchases more likely to occur on a larger scale due to its appeal.

How design thinking encourages business growth

There are several other benefits of design thinking for businesses. Namely, it increases long-term growth opportunities. Here are some ways designing thinking encourages growth:

It enables organisational culture change

Design thinking helps promote an inclusive and collaborative team environment in the workplace. It ensures that C-suite professionals take their time brainstorming new initiatives and gathering opinions from others in the organisation. Giving employees the assurance that their ideas have been explored and considered leads to positive work culture. Such positive cultural change improves employee satisfaction and the likelihood of employees investing more time and effort into guaranteeing business success.

It solves productivity issues

Design thinking helps analyse operational problems and come up with better processes. The design stage involves specifying business requirements and challenges related to product creation and processes. Once they realise productive issues, businesses can brainstorm ways to improve ways of carrying out functions. Meaning underlying business issues and boost company output can be resolved in this way.

It allows for ROI gains

By focusing on user experience, businesses are likely to increase revenue. Innovative solutions that solve specific customer pain points can help decrease the cost spent on customer support, reduces the risks of the product or services needing redevelopment, increase customer retention and conversions, and expand market outreach.

Catalyst for change

It helps foster better communications between siloed teams within an organisation - helping to pave the way for more constructive dialogues and better creativity. By having an environment where innovative ideas are discussed and debated, its ensures that only the most suitable solutions are selected for development and launched. The outcome prompts positive change that enhances business outcomes.

Design thinking for business innovation is essential. Zoosh is a trusted advisor for all types of businesses looking to digitally transform for increased operational productivity and efficiencies. Find out more about what we can do for you on our Product Studio page.

Find out how you can 'Design your company for success' as we discuss in our whitepaper how design thinking has helped some companies achieve prosperity.