Design thinking has a significant role in the companies but it has been astonishingly disappearing from innovation due to non-effective conceptualisation of design as a creative economic activity in the companies. However, there are number of small and medium-sized companies which have not effective system such as intermediary design way in order to take care of design activities (Glen, Suciu&Baughn, 2014). It is required from them to focus on other activities in order to bring attention of people towards new design knowledge. There are many organizations that have little appetite for risk as well as limited resources. This report will elaborate the challenges in implementing new design and design management knowledge into the innovative activities of SMEs. The issues will be resolved with the help of an effective design thinking tools which would increase better knowledge regarding how to resolve the challenges by taking help of the design thinking tools. To additional validate this insight is one of the purpose of this paper.
There are so many organizations that are trying to be connected with digital era in order to stay with the client for a long time. Many SMEs have to face the issue of adapting to rising customer experience expectations related to the internal and external customers. It has been found that there are only 21% of companies are taking use of an effective services of the transformative value of digital.
It has been found that the design thinking is considered as the tool which is a human-centered approach to innovations that incorporates the emotion and empathy of the customer, the probabilities of digital technology and analytics, and the need for the success of the business. Design thinking has the capability to modify the experiences of the customers into an executable prototype, and help cross-functional experiments across the organizations (Liedtka, 2015). It has been found that the major issue with the company is to absorb external knowledge in order to bring innovation within the operation of the company. There is a design thinking technique of absorptive capacity (ACAP), it shows the ability of the organization to identify the value of external information and apply it to commercial ends.
There is various design thinking tools that helps in developing the solution for the organization that face issues while implementing new design and design management knowledge into the innovative activities of SMEs. In the context of the problem, it has been found that internal and external challenges are major issue for the innovation in SMEs. Farsi &Toghraee, (2014), recognized the challenges to innovation such as high cost for innovation, lack of specialists and lack of technologically advanced equipments. These challenges are major reason to implement new innovation in small medium enterprise.
It is one of the designs thinking tool that helps in providing ways for people to involve with each other in an effective manner. It is the activity of the design thinking that support various level of participation, from situation in which various external figures are included in specific moments. SMEs have adopted the typical approach for the design innovation and it is required for the companies to focus on the latestapproach so that the innovation and be done in more effective manner. With the help of this activity, SMEs would be able to involve the employees of the organization in the growth of the business in which they can provide their point of view reading the solution of the challenges of technology (Bowen, Morara&Mureithi, 2009). The innovation can be done in more effective manner by involving exact moments to situations in which they get division to the entire procedure.
Envisioning is another design thinking tools that consider as the process of imagining what might be. Along with that it helps in providing future features more tangible through defining them in different way such as representation. As it is mentioned above that there are many problems which can be faced by SMEs while developing an innovation in the organization. It has been evaluated that the tough think regarding envisioning at the time of the process of services design is better communication. There should be an effective communication both the inner device of the procedure and the unimportant aspects of the experience (Bekele&Worku, 2008). I have analyzed that this tool would be helpful in determining to take step regarding innovation.
Mind mapping is an effective tool of the design thinking that show how ideas can be linked to the central idea. It is the tool that is being taken in the use of generating, classifying and visualizing ideas to look for insights as well as for patterns that give effective design criteria. It is required for the success of mind mapping to have a supportive team. It has been found that the technological advances have become huge challenges to small businesses (Gray&Malins, 2016). There are number of small enterprises that are facing issues due to impact of technological amendments on the work. Many organizations are becoming unfamiliar with the new technologies. To overcome this challenge, mind mapping is an effective tool that helps in making better connections between clusters and insights (Eniola, Entebang&Sakariyau, 2015).
Customer co-creation is the design tool or technique that aids managers to connect with the customer at the time of the process of developing and making new innovative ideas for business of mutual interest. It is an effective approach that facilitates in reducing the risk to innovation and growth. Innovation is the concept that is related to the learning. There are major obstacles to technology enhancement in SMEs which are shortage of funds, lack of knowledge about latest technology and improvement on productivity (Brown & Green, 2015). It is the design thinking tool that is helpful in making better understanding of SMEs to provide them visual stimuli not the fancy at this stage. It would give better outcome as I have analyzed that customer-co creation is the approach that helps business to develop innovative ideas as per the expectation of the customer.
It is required for the organizations to consider some steps while launching the innovative solutions in future. These steps are mentioned below:
Step 1: Innovation leadership: it is the first step that sounds obvious, but it has been observed that it is the major reason of failure of number of organizations at the time of innovating new ideas within the organization. The role of the innovation strategy needs to be more in comparison of empty expression of acknowledgment to innovation (Collins, 2017). It is the step which requires high level of commitment with those people who are more obsessed with innovation.
Step 2: The execution of an innovation strategy
It is the belief of many people that the role of the innovation is effective in the startup environment. There are an ample of reasons that why innovation is not executed within a corporate environment. It has been evaluated that there are great stories of failure behind the success of the multinational company. It is the step which elaborates the consideration of the higher risks of conflict with present business. There is various design thinking tools that helps in eliminating the risks of technological advancement or digital technology (Landoni, Dell’Era, Ferraloro, Peradotto, Karlsson&Verganti, 2016). SMEs should consider all risks while implementing the innovation within their operation in which according to the above mentioned techniques, company need to involve employee of the organization.
Step 3: Focus and being realistic about innovation initiatives
It is the third step that elaborates the focus and being realistic about the innovation initiatives. It is required for the organizations to differentiate between innovations which are formulated for the remaining products. It has been evaluated that the capabilities of design are made by the use of the design tools but the role of the design management concepts is huge in creating a long term value. Tools like journey mapping, mind mapping, co-creation customer and many more are helpful in determining the exploration of business opportunities.
The design thinking process covers five steps in it such as empathize, define, and ideate, prototype and test. This process helps in identifying the problems within the system and along with that it facilitated in achieving the innovative solutions.
Empathizing is the first step of this process that helps in attaining a better understanding of the challenge. The second stage of define facilitate designer to collect great ideas in order to make an effective solution for the identified issues. There are an ample of ideation techniques like brainstorm, Scamper, brain write and many more that can be used to arouse an effective way for the best solution. At last, test is last element that helps in evaluating the impact of innovation through design thinking over the process of the organization.
Conclusion
From above discussion, it can be concluded that the role of the design thinking tools in innovation is huge as it helps in resolving the challenges at the time of innovating new ideas. This report has been elaborated the problem related to the digital nature in SMEs. Some design thinking tools have been elaborated under this report in order to bring better understanding about the entire concepts.
References
Bekele, E., &Worku, Z. (2008). Women entrepreneurship in micro, small and medium enterprises: The case of Ethiopia. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 10(2), 3-19.
Bowen, M., Morara, M., &Mureithi, M. (2009). Management of business challenges among small and micro enterprises in Nairobi-Kenya. KCA journal of business management, 2(1).
Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2015). The essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with process and practice. Routledge.
Collins, H. (2017). Creative research: the theory and practice of research for the creative industries. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Eniola, A., Entebang, H., &Sakariyau, O. B. (2015). Small and medium scale business performance in Nigeria: Challenges faced from an intellectual capital perspective. International Journal of Research Studies in Management, 4(1), 59-71.
Farsi, J. Y., &Toghraee, M. T. (2014). Identification the main challenges of small and medium sized enterprises in exploiting of innovative opportunities (Case study: Iran SMEs). Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 4(1), 4.
Genpact, 2017.Design Thinking innovation for business processes and operations. Retrieved from: https://www.genpact.com/downloadable-content/insight/design-thinking-innovation-for-business-processes-and-operations-an-overlooked-key-to-growth-not-just-cost.pdf.
Glen, R., Suciu, C., &Baughn, C. (2014).The need for design thinking in business schools. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(4), 653-667.
Gray, C., &Malins, J. (2016). Visualizing research: A guide to the research process in art and design.Routledge.
Landoni, P., Dell’Era, C., Ferraloro, G., Peradotto, M., Karlsson, H., &Verganti, R. (2016). Design contribution to the competitive performance of SMEs: The role of design innovation capabilities. Creativity and Innovation Management, 25(4), 484-499.
Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with innovation outcomes through cognitive bias reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-938.
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