What is design thinking and what advantages does it bring to your business?

What products should I innovate in and how? How can I improve customer service? Am I offering the best solution to consumers? All these questions can be key to boosting our business. But in order to address them we need to make decisions about the possible solutions and measures we can implement in our business. This is where design thinking comes in.

In a world as changing as todays, where we must adapt our businesses to the current technology in which we live, design thinking can be the tool that allows us to achieve results adapted to the needs of our customers. All this with a realistic technology and business strategy that can provide a valuable opportunity in the market.

For this reason, leading companies such as Apple, Google or Zara use this technique in their processes. This is because it can be applied to any field, serving as a generator of innovation and allowing the design of experiences, solutions, products and creative strategies.

What is design thinking?

It is an interdisciplinary method used to solve problems while fostering creativity in collaboration. This methodology puts special focus on the user, studying their weaknesses and challenges in order to offer effective solutions to their changing needs.

It does not focus on problems as such, but focuses on solutions using logic, imagination, intuition and systematic reasoning.

It is a useful tool for companies because it helps to question processes. In this way it allows us to approach problems that are ill-defined or unknown. While other methodologies are more rigid, this methodology has the ability to allow us to face problems from an alternative perspective to conceptualise the ideas agreed by the team in order to identify their impact and make improvements or changes.

Now that we are clearer about what it consists of, we can explain its 5 fundamental phases:

1. Empathise with users or customers. This is the best way to extract information.
2. Define their needs, problems and desires. With the information obtained, sift through it and select the information that adds value and can help to achieve the objectives.
3. Ideation. Bringing together the different approaches to find the ideas that lead to solutions.
4. Set up one or more prototypes. Realise the ideas of the previous phase.
5. Carry out tests with the different solutions proposed and identify failures and shortcomings in order to make the necessary improvements.

Advantages of implementing design thinking in retail outlets

We can emphasise that the ideas that arise from design thinking as a methodology bring value not only to our business, but also to our customers, which is an opportunity for improvement for our company. It can also be applied to optimise work processes or to define new processes such as, for example, the implementation of new technologies or the digitalisation of certain processes. Furthermore, the application of this methodology can also be used to:

• Develop empathy.
• Reinforce teamwork.
• Promote self-improvement.
• Encourage creativity.
• Generate a good working environment.

Arguably the biggest advantage of using this methodology in a business is its great transformative potential. In other words, through this methodology we can turn around problems that are poorly defined or not understood.  In fact, innovation as a result of design thinking does not have to be the creation of a new product. It can start with something as simple as the implementation of an online payment platform.

Given that digital transformation aims to add value to companies through innovation in digital products or services, design thinking is the ideal tool for adding value to the user.