Design Thinking Creates A Competitive Advantage

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Design Thinking Creates A Competitive Advantage

26 Aug 2022
- admin
- Innovation & Design Thinking
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“If you decide in advance what you are going to do, you are likely to discover what you already knew.

~ Roger Martin, Management Thinker & Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management

The world of business is a vast bundle of opportunities and possibilities. The inherent competitiveness in business, however, is also leading to increased complexity. This is emerging as a challenge for organizations as they look to remain relevant, competitive, and grow in the long run. Complexity, if not tackled, tends to stymie growth leading to unnecessary costs, wastage of resources and ultimately preventing recognition of opportunities and innovation.

The solution lies in a new approach to business, specifically, “design thinking.”

The emerging concept of Design Thinking often confuses individuals and leads to conflict within organizations. The generations of managers, fed on conventional management approaches, have fixed notions of analytical and reliability-focused decision-making. The truth is that what this tried and proven approach leads to is an environment where focussed innovation is buried.

Design thinking is emerging as a necessity for organizations that have in the past taken the route of going along with traditional management thinking. Conventional management styles have led to a situation that lacks creativity, flexibility, and innovation as it chooses –
- reliability over validity
- exploitation over exploration
- mastery versus originality
- and analytical thinking over intuitive thinking
As businesses operate in dynamic environments, organizations need to create and seize opportunities, and not succumb to competition. Design thinking can help organizations to throw up solutions that not only provide significant value addition for their target customer group but also businesses.

Design thinking has emerged as a structured and process-driven approach to finding solutions to multiple sets of problem statements- both front and back end. The key approach in Design Thinking is based on process and instead of being problem-focused, it is more solution focussed. The latitude given helps the practitioner to arrive at solutions that are truly outside the box and groundbreaking.

Summary

As businesses operate in dynamic environments, organizations need to create and seize opportunities, and not succumb to competition. Design thinking can help organizations to throw up solutions.

Design Thinking – A Deeper Look

So, Design thinking is an approach that views a problem statement and comes up with a host of viable solutions to tackle them. Rather than looking at KPIs or metrics, the focus is entirely on the customer and their needs and this is what drives innovation.

Once the solutions are outlined, the next stage looks at creating prototypes for the shortlisted ones and testing them to check for the intended results.

Design Thinking looks at answers to three important questions that drive the solutions:
1. Whether the solution is desirable to the audiences – both internal and external?
2. Whether the solution is feasible in the long run?
3. Whether the solution can be adapted to become a sustainable business model?
The foundation of Design Thinking is based on the five pillars that are fundamental to the process.
- Empathize – an understanding of customer’s needs, wants & expectations
- Define – A clear definition of the problem statement to derive actionable goals
- Ideate – Exploring potential solutions to the problem statement through team-based brainstorming
- Prototype – Creating prototypes to weed out weak and unsuitable solutions and build on the viable ones.
- Test – Testing the solution, service, process, or initiative prototype with customers to understand what works and obtain feedback to continuously improve the prototype for ultimate acceptance by the target audience.
The key to design thinking is a human-centric approach to enable empathy with the people at the center of the process. This ultimately allows the creation of products and services that resonate and are tailored to the audience’s needs.

Summary

Design thinking is an approach that views a problem statement and comes up with a host of viable solutions to tackle them. It looks at answers to three important questions…

Building A Competitive Advantage

The cornerstone of design thinking is based on a solution that helps to address complex issues/ problems. This tends to breed innovation and can have a direct impact on the customer experience and increase a company’s competitive advantage.

The competitive advantage so gained, makes the entity’s goods or services superior to all of a customer’s other choices by –
- Providing benefit through the product or service by delivering value
- Understanding the target market
- Understanding of the competition landscape
Competitive advantages as a result of Design Thinking could be derived in multiple areas such as differentiation or cost. Differentiation is the ultimate goal of business, something that is achieved by harmonizing and integrating Design Thinking as part of its corporate strategy.

Summary

The cornerstone of design thinking is based on a solution that helps to address complex issues/ problems. The competitive advantage so gained, makes the entity’s goods or services superior to all of a customer’s other choices by…

Conclusion

Design thinking is a method that combines creativity, customer needs, technology, and flexibility to create solutions that fit into users’ unmet or unarticulated needs. It provides the tools to help redesign value propositions to incorporate solutions that meet customer needs and sustain competitive advantage.

Design thinking can be applied to just about anything – internal or external audiences, processes, stakeholders of the business and find innovative solutions to resolve an existing problem or/ and create business sustainability.

The process allows addressing problems by looking at them from various angles and orchestrating the perfect collaborative solution. Design Thinking is human-centered, intuitive, and embraces the concept of lateral thinking by immersion into the needs of customers. All the effort through this radical thought process then translates into a competitive advantage.

Design is not only about graphics and branding. Design and design thinking focuses on the most essential elements in everything, be it a new product, a new service, a process improvement, or more. The focus is on the impact of features and functions that have an impact. This, in the end, is the epicenter of great brands, solutions, and organizations.

Thus, Design and Design Thinking is not merely a marketing tool, but a genuine source of competitive advantage, and customer and employee satisfaction.

Explore PGDM in Design Thinking at SOIL.

The two-year MBA – PGDM in Design thinking offered at SOIL Institute of Management is a path-breaking route for the student to learn better ways to creatively design new products/ services or modify or extend existing ones. The two-year MBA – PGDM in Design thinking moves away from the generalist MBA and offers designed management learning that is practical, multi-dimensional, and user-oriented. Students have the opportunity to learn creative and innovative approaches to redefining internal processes and creating/ solving external problem statements.

The world-class curriculum at the top MBA colleges in India – SOIL empowers and inspires young leaders to take on the challenges of managing, collaborating, and adapting with a different perspective. The School of Business Design at SOIL integrates Design Thinking, Management, and Liberal Arts to unleash the creative potential of students and create truly well-rounded, future-ready leaders.

Summary

Design Thinking provides the tools to help redesign value propositions to incorporate solutions that meet customer needs and sustain competitive advantage. Check out what the SOIL Institute of Management has to offer.

FAQs
Is an MBA in Design Thinking a good career option?

An MBA in design thinking looks to bridge the gap within generic management streams using the design and innovation processes required by every organization to manage change. It will help the management graduates develop the confidence to take swift decisions, be comfortable with placing strategic bets using intuition and data, it will further help business leaders to incorporate thinking across multiple disciplines, undertake more ethnographic studies and less quantitative analysis, and view richer insights about the targeted personas.

What are the pillars of Design Thinking?

The foundation of Design Thinking is based on the five pillars that are fundamental to the process.

Empathize – an understanding of customer’s needs, wants & expectations

Define – A clear definition of the problem statement to derive actionable goals

Ideate – Exploring potential solutions to the problem statement through team-based brainstorming

Prototype – Creating prototypes to weed out weak and unsuitable solutions and build on the viable ones.

Test – Testing the solution, service, process, or initiative prototype with customers to understand what works and obtain feedback to continuously improve the prototype for ultimate acceptance by the target audience.

What are the skills required to pursue an MBA – PGDM in Design Thinking?

A design thinking mindset would expose and nurture skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, leadership, collaboration, and communication. These are skills that would be essential and fundamental to a successful design thinking professional.

What will I achieve after pursuing an MBA in Design Thinking?

Exploring beyond the realms of a traditional MBA with SOIL Institute of Management’s PGDM in Business Design would allow one to be part of a transformational program that would enable the students to work for “human-centered innovation”.

Some traits that the MBA courses look to develop in their students are –

Developing Empathy and Understanding People

The Art of Critical Questioning

Being Open-minded

Working in Teams – Being a Team Player

Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Failing is an Opportunity to Learn

What are the eligibility criteria for pursuing MBA in Design Thinking?

Eligibility Criteria

All applicants are required to appear for GMAT /CAT /XAT /MAT.

Freshers and candidates with less than 5 years of work experience are eligible to apply.

Applicants should hold a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognized institution

Graduation type: 3 years / 4 years or 5 years integrated program

Stream: Arts/Commerce/Science/ Engg. (B. Tech / B.E) etc.

Applicants may submit multiple examination scores; SOBD will consider the best score provided by an applicant while shortlisting applications

Candidates should have a full-time undergraduate degree completion certificate before 15th June 2022

How much does SOIL Institute of Management’s PGDM in Design Thinking cost?

SOIL Institute of Management’s MBA in Design Thinking fee is inclusive of tuition fee, examination fee, extra and co-curricular activities on campus, Library books & reading material, IT Services, etc. See all details here.

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Summary

Is an MBA in Design Thinking a good career option?

What are the pillars of Design Thinking?

What are the skills required to pursue an MBA – PGDM in Design Thinking?

What will I achieve after pursuing an MBA in Design Thinking?

What are the eligibility criteria for pursuing MBA in Design Thinking?

How much does SOIL Institute of Management’s PGDM in Design Thinking cost?

Never miss a beat. Get Blog updates regularly in your inbox

PGDM Batch 2025-27 Orientation Start Date - 20th June 2025

Is an MBA in Design Thinking a good career option?

What are the pillars of Design Thinking?

What are the skills required to pursue an MBA – PGDM in Design Thinking?

What will I achieve after pursuing an MBA in Design Thinking?

What are the eligibility criteria for pursuing MBA in Design Thinking?

How much does SOIL Institute of Management’s PGDM in Design Thinking cost?

Never miss a beat. Get Blog updates regularly in your inbox

PGDM Batch 2025-27 Orientation Start Date - 20^th June 2025