Uncategorized

Customer Engagement for profitable business outcomes

Uncategorized

This blog is intended to make the concept of customer engagement easy to understand, so here I use the 5 W’s and 1 H to make the reading interesting and relevant.
Customer engagement as a field of study is of recent interest in marketing management and it is still evolving. ‘Engagement’ as a term was used in behavioural studies to refer to ‘employee engagement’, hence it has roots from social sciences.
Though there is no single acceptable definition of customer engagement yet, however researchers do agree that customer engagement strategy is an essential element for customer satisfaction and retention in this growing competitive market.

What is Customer Engagement?
Mckinsey defines customer engagement as a personal connection that exists between a consumer and a brand that gets stronger over a period of time leading to mutual exchange of value. CE is a two-way relationship that thrives on fulfilling customer needs and thereby generating profits for the brand.
According to Gallup Customer engagement is an emotional connection between the customer and the company and this emotional connect influences customers future purchase decisions.

Why Customer Engagement?
We should understand why customer engagement strategies be implemented in any organization. Few of the benefits are mentioned below:
• Customer engagement is tied to business outcomes
• Engagement strategies enable the level of transparency that customers seek
• Customer engagement ensures retention of existing customers in a cost effective way.
• Customer engagement help organisations to acquire new customers at a negligible cost

Where & when can customers be engaged?
One of the important driver of customer engagement is technological advancement. With growth of internet and use of smartphones customer engagement is just a click away. Competitive pricing by telecommunication network providers and reasonable prices of smartphones has accelerated the internet usage by consumers. The number of smartphone and internet users are increasing worldwide with 95% users in advanced economies, 60% users in emerging economies like India.

Smartphones allow customers to engage in activities that entertain them, connect with their loved and complete their task on hand. Hence Smartphones coupled with internet connectivity paves way for the marketers to engage with customers anywhere and everywhere.

Who are engaged customers?
The engaged customers may be called as the ‘ideal’ consumers that every business desires to have. Highly engaged customers eventually become potential promoters of the business and advocate the brand to prospective consumers. However all engaged customers may not generate profits for the organisations, hence strategy to engage customers needs to be designed cautiously.

How engaged Customer feel and behave?
Enngaged customers often express greater satisfaction with the brand and they feel emotional bond with the brand.The engaged customers admit that they trust the brand and continue being loyal to the brand in future.Engaged consumers certainly add value to the business by buying 90% more frequently and spend 300% more compared to other customers annually. Further they may even indicate their fondness for the brand by declaring that it is the only brand that they would like to purchase in the near future.

Hence it can be concluded that an organization employing customer engagement strategies is only going to improve its profitability through customer satisfaction and retention.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/digital-india-technology-to-transform-a-connected-nation

Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly Around the World, but Not Always Equally


Gallup, A. M., & Newport, F. (2010). The gallup poll: Public opinion 2009. Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Human Capital – An Imperative

Uncategorized,

Human capital is the collective resource possessed by the citizens and individuals in a country and can be measured over decades to actually gauge the development of a country; human resources play a most significant role in developing a sustainable competitive advantage and efficiency for an organization, society and the country. The collective human capital resources include the talent, skills, knowledge, education abilities, experiences, intelligence, judgment…and this forms the collective intellectual wealth in the country towards achievement of long term goals.

The concept of human capital is rooted in the economic literature (Becker, 1996). He also highlighted that human beings will always be associated with their skill, health, and values, thereby defining human capital; while they can be separated from their assets and properties. It is as important as infrastructure for economic development. Human capital complements physical capital (viz the infrastructure) in the production process and is an important input to technological innovation and long-run growth. Human capital is created through development of skilled, trained and efficient work-force by providing education, health care facilities; skilled people can create new ideas & so expenditure on education, health, on on-job-training are key instruments of capital formation. Human capital is what people accumulate over their lives, enabling them to achieve their potential as contributory members of the society.

The Scottish economist Adam Smith commented, “The acquisition of talents during education, study or apprenticeship, costs a real expense, which is capital in a person. Those talents are part of his fortune and likewise that of society.” Human capital adds up to large benefits for the economy of the country, the region and global development— some countries become more prosperous as more human capital accumulates.

Economists, like Harbison, Schultz, Kuznets, Kendrick and Denison all emphasized that a key aspect for the progressive growth of developed countries and America is their increasing spends on education, social health and reskilling resulting significant improvement in the level of human capital formation. On the contrary a major reason the underdeveloped countries suffer from lower economic growth, is the lack of focus and investments in human capital.

As per Prof. Galbraith observed, “The larger part of our industrial growth comes not from more capital investment but from investment in men and improvements brought about by improved men.”

As per the World bank report, 2018, more than 260 million children and youth in poorer countries are receiving no education at all. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim highlighted in Foreign Affairs, “The world today faces a – human capital gap.” The Human Capital Project launched by the World Bank is a global effort to accelerate investments in people for greater equity and economic growth.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2018/10/11/invest-in-me-the-human-capital-project

A report from the Economic times highlighted that the 15th Finance Commission, the HRD ministry has pitched for a Rs 36,000-crore higher education plan, towards the imperative of an employable workforce to be developed over the next decade . The ministry emphasized a ‘4E growth mantra’— educate, energize, employ and empower .The team also underlined the need to boost higher education with a focus on

  • Quality and cognitive skills, for e.g. a Choice Based Credit System has been recommended for the undergraduate students.
  • Energizing wellness backed with universal affordable health care, for e.g. initiatives of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) have been launched for the economically vulnerable sections of the society.
  • Increasing employability through linking of education and skills and focusing on higher skills integrated in education. Skill Based education through Universities have already been launched, with specialized labs, industry connect and centers of excellence.

The Organization for Economic development (OECD) further defined different ways to measure human capital taking a range of indicators viz

  • Skills and qualifications ,Education levels ,Work experience, Ability to innovate ;
  • Social skills ( Communication ,Intelligence ,Emotional intelligence ,Judgement, Creativity)
  • Personality – hard working, harmonious in an office ,Habits and personality traits
  • Geography – Social peer pressure of local environment can affect expectations and attitudes.

Basis a World Bank report between 10 -30 percent of per capita GDP gross domestic product (GDP) differences amongst countries are attributable to cross-country differences in human capital. Typically human capital also fosters social capital. Surveys typically find that educated people are more trusting of others.

Human Capital is an imperative and Economic growth is impacted positively in the long run as human capital develops, and indicators which are directly visible are good health, increased urban income generation and reduction in crime and social unrest (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2005).

Social Media in the times of Coronavirus

Uncategorized

With the unprecedented propagation of Novel Coronavirus-19 or COVID-19, the last few weeks has been exceptionally unpredictable, worrisome and restraining for everyone on the face of earth. Be it rich or poor or from any nationality, lives have been severely impacted due to this outbreak which has spread so rapidly that it caught many so-called developed nations by total surprise. We all have learnt many new terms which were unheard of a few weeks ago like “Social Distancing”. Even those who had never worked from home are now forced to do so. Many established norms and role models have got challenged in such a short span of time.

 

India and its leaders have responded fast and responded well to contain this emergency. Only time will tell whether we come out of this serious issue unscathed or it will leave us with marks difficult to erase. However, one thing is sure that our thoughts and paradigms will certainly change for the future.

 

What has been the best friend for all the citizens during these testing times is Social Media. Whether it is any platform being used, dissemination of information through Whatsapp and other medium has been really fast. Compared to a century ago when Spanish Flu arrived in India in 1918 and spread like wild fire over the next many months, information about COVID-19 has spread more rapidly and has been more widespread. Without advancements of last decade or so in realms of Social Media, the information flow about this disease, steps to prevent it and efforts to contain it might not have been as fast as they are currently. Information and mis-information has flown freely in the last two months since it first became noticed in Wuhan. It has helped spread caution amongst a large segment of India’s population including those from Rural areas or from poor segments of the society. At the same time, it has forced Governments to take note and initiate actions to contain the disease.

 

We have all seen alarming as well as funny forwards that we have received over last several weeks. Be it videos of movie stars like Katrina Kaif washing their own dishes or Police forces trying to contain violators of Lockdown across many states or Kartik Aryan warning us about the seriousness of this disease, Social Media has kept us entertained and well informed about the actions needed from the citizens to help contain this disease. One of the many forward’s received read “To all the Country Heads, Marketing Heads, Vice Presidents……. Bartan Dho Liye?”.

 

We are fortunate that our Government has been working to contain this disease and used Social Media to help stop this disease in India. Unlike the Mayor of a city in Europe who wished to celebrate February 1st 2020 as “Hug a Chinese Day”, our Government has issued strict warnings and given the do’s and don’ts clearly enough. We might have been bombarded with too much information in too short a span of time with same message received in several groups, Social Media definitely has aided in helping create awareness about this disease. Hoping that we all come out of this stronger and better and take lessons to celebrate life and humanity. Please join me in the chant “Corona go….. 😊”

 

Corona and Its Impact on Global Stock Markets

Uncategorized

Pandemic are diseases that manifest in the worst possible forms and spread across the world. Last time, when homo sapiens faced this challenge and mayhem was in the year 1918, when almost 1 percent (50 million) of the world’s population was wiped out due to Spanish flu caused by a similar strain of virus.

The origin of the Covid-19 is still not clear, while some blame it on the seafood market of China whereas others blame it to some other unknown reasons. Globalized World gives rise to diseases which are also global in nature and has currently impacted more than 190 countries of the world with China, Italy, Iran and Spain worst effected. Countries like US are also caught unaware and can become epicenter of epidemic. New York, the city which doesn’t sleep is facing  complete shut down.

Stock Markets are secondary markets for already existing securities. Stock prices are impacted by global factors, country specific factors and firm specific factor. Virus which by definition is a protein wall and some genetic material has created such a havoc and disruption in the Global Stock Market and also our Indian financial markets. Global stock markets around the world are coupled and hence witnessed contagion effect or spillover effect.  Pandemic has impacted businesses causing shutdowns of assembly lines and manufacturing units, airlines routes restricted, fleets grounded, electronics and mobile industries dependent on Chinese raw materials are impacted. Similarly, hotel industry, entertainment industry have slowed down and so is the mobility industry such as Ola and Uber. Consumers are ignoring those purchases which can be postponed from consumer durable to automobiles. The silver lining is some of the industries such a e-pharma, food and delivery portals are seeing improvement in sales. Dow Jones witnessed its greatest fall by 2000 points-with companies like Boeing, Apple, Goldman Sachs and Caterpillar falling by 100 points. Indian benchmark indices BSE Sensex and Nifty also lost nearly 37 percent which experts suggest is 40 percent of India’s GDP. Also, US businesses both manufacturing and services are adversely impacted. It has been predicted that world may witness a severe recession since 2008 financial crisis. In this globalized scenario the spillover effect is difficult to avoid, any development taking place at global and country level creates ripples which reverberates across the stock markets of the world. Also, the fear and uncertainty has resulted in Foreign Institutional Investors leaving the stock market which has caused the downfall of markets further.

Things may improve either through breaking the chain of virus spread through complete lock-down or huge number of testing done on suspected cases (as South Korea has done) or a vaccine which can be a preventive  can be developed on a fast track mode to further cease the spread at a bullet speed.

Some of the points to mull over-Will the world economy be able to recover and thrive again? Will the markets see corrections again after such a huge downfall and erosion of wealth?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/market-crash-is-valuation-play-coronavirus-just-the-scapegoat/articleshow/74411701.cms

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/why-the-stock-market-is-falling/articleshow/74608475.cms

Social Media: An important part of our life!

Uncategorized

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…. imagine waking up one day without these Apps on our phone! For some, this would be a scary thought, for others it may be a sigh of relief!! One thing is certain….. it is a big part of our lives since it helps us to communicate, interact, keeps us updated or even helps us express ourselves better. Let us honestly ask ourselves a question, how many times we pick up our phones to check these apps, to see what others have posted, to check the number of likes we have received on our posts, to read the comments….. I am sure we all know at least one person who is addicted to social media!

Social Media came into existence in 1990s but over these years has gained popularity across the globe and across all segments of the society. Every individual wants to communicate, irrespective of the era they belong to. Communication too underwent drastic changes from pigeons, light signals, postal systems, telegraph, telephone, letters and emails to social media. Social media has in true sense changed the landscape of communication. Nowadays, gestures and body language have got replaced with acronyms and emoticons! Social media has evolved from just being a medium of entertainment and communication to a platform being used by businesses, entrepreneurs and organization that aim to gain recognition and identification at economical prices.

In today’s dynamic environment, people are all the time hard pressed for time. In such a scenario, the advantages of social media cannot be denied. Marketers too are making full use of the power of social media. Videos, blogs, articles provide innovative ideas that capture the attention of the viewers and also keep the customers engaged. Five to seven minutes of reading an article or blog and the customer is all set to clink on the link and make a purchase…. That is the power of Social Media!! From big giants like Apple, Microsoft to your local grocery store around the corner, are all on social media in order to reach out to their customers in the most convenient way. In a nutshell, whether we like it or not, we cannot ignore the power of Social Media and its importance in our day to day life!!

 

Critical Thinking: tool for a concrete judgment.

Uncategorized,

Critical thinking could simply be defined as – evaluation of a problem to find the solutions
rationally but with novelty. It is what is applied to all forums despite of its nature of tasks and
execution, educational fields and employment settings. Preparing our students for future
employment, World Economic Forum has identified “Critical Thinking” as world’s important
dimension to promote futuristic learning and innovation. Hence it is mandatory to necessitate
the inclusion of this component.
The most challenging and debatable question in the present world is whether or not our
students are tuned to give logical judgments and critical solutions that are developed through
reasoned course of action. Quite contrary to what is expected the easiest way chosen by
students nowadays is to provide and subside for readily available solutions to problem
without scratching their creative minds. This could be either because of their inability or lack
of positive engagement to enable them to tap on their critical mind thus deterring them to
think of multiple solutions to arrive to a problem which is otherwise answered by them in a
singular pre existing manner.
All this makes the importance of brushing critical thinking component in the young mind
most vital. Fostering creativity, innovation, exploration can further lead to the nurturance of
critical thinking which can help them arrive at multiple solutions to the problem and then
evaluating while arriving at the best solution.
Many education institutions are constantly ensuring to brush upon this component by actively
engaging and encouraging students to think out of box, promoting and recognizing creativity
via projects and assignments tapping novelty. Recognizing the importance of the component
in employment world, higher education bodies are tuning the students and preparing them
well for futuristic job which involves the component of critical thinking along with leadership
skills, interpersonal skills with sound technical knowledge all making up to desirable
“Employability skills” looked by the employers during recruitment and promotion time
periods.
Why critical thinking is important?
APA defines critical thinking as- “ purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that uses cognitive
tools such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation of the evidential,
conceptual, methodological, or contextual considerations on which judgment is based.”

While we all agree that change is the only constant element of the world, it is not wrong to
say that with every minute change in the existing element new complexity arises and when
new complexity arises it is important to attend to it differently. If we were to attend to it in
the same manner then newness, creativity, exploration and innovation will be hindered. Thus
it is very important that we constantly switch directions, rethink and adopt creative problem
solving strategies to ensure that we enable divergent thinking to reach to convergent way of
reaching to solutions.
It is increasingly essential for Young minds who are also the future nation builders to explore
their creative minds and develop diverse strategies to apply new knowledge to current
complex situations of the world with the prerogative of coming to the finest of solutions.
Where knowledge institutions promotes critical thinking and suggests students to engage in
problem solving technology has massively created a constant stoppage by readily providing
the pre existing knowledge and solutions resisting students to think beyond the limits and
come up with novel ideas. While this seems to be challengeable issue, teachers in present
century are devising curriculums that promote critical thinking and are taking immeasurable
steps to prepare the futuristic nation builders to act purposefully. Not critical thinking is being
included in all courses where students are encouraged to use their problem solving ability to
identify, analyze, evaluate and derive solutions using their competencies. Teaching pedagogy
is now essentially incorporating it in the study plan through projects to ensure it gets
manifested in students while preparing them for professional world.
Following teaching strategies have been adopted to help promote critical thinking amongst
students:
1) Assessing the students on the basis of the learning outcome after every class either in
written or oral form so as to understand the extent of their learning and
comprehending the same in their own words.
2) Promoting group learning by presenting problems and helping them to argue ,
brainstorm and come out with multiple ways of arriving at solutions to the presented
problems.
3) Using the discussion oriented method students are encouraged to discuss and reach to
a potential viable solution of the case presented which is led by the student.
4) Utilizing peer group interaction to come up with innovative project inducing novelty,
team work and collaboration

Hence critical thinking is important in today’s world as it helps us in the process of reaching
conclusion. While it is important for all to harvest this trait to logically arrive at solutions
involving low to high risk matters.

Questions to reflect upon:
 Can students really benefit from strategies listed above to imbibe critical thinking?
 What are different unidentified errors that can bring inconsistencies in reasoning?

ADOPTION OF A NEW – AGE TRANSFER OF LEARNINGS

Uncategorized

As India becomes the country with the world’s largest workforce in 2020, there is a need to implement a robust, well-developed and modern education system.  We know that the thinking and temperament of our current generation is rather different from what stems through a traditional system of education. Teaching through textbooks and knowledge that is classroom-confined are not acceptable by the current generation. In the next 20 years, an educational institution will be a very different place. The decision-makers and those who think about reforming education have already worked on new learning techniques and a pedagogy that focuses on liberal education and a multi-disciplinary approach to move away from traditional teaching that encourages only remaining confined within stifling boundaries.

Higher education in India has been regarded and appraised for its multi-disciplinary approach. The objective is to foster learning and growth amongst the student population so as to nurture its roots well. With a mission of adopting, adjusting and adapting, the education system is expected to move forward with an inclusive approach thus providing flexible boundaries, so as to ensure that the young minds be equipped with the sort of immunization that can help them deal easily with the world’s changing and progressive demands.

Teaching patterns have now become more structured than they were earlier. Rather than train students massively with a collective approach that negates individual needs, the education system today is expected to moderate and modify teaching methods to make it students-centric that will obviously aid all competency levels of students. Advanced teaching methods have enabled students to not only procure a degree in the respective area of choice but have also enabled them to earn credits in other areas of interest. Facilitators or teachers have now become far more compassionate and professionally trained to anticipate student-specific demands and concerns early enough to bring into existence changes in teaching patterns. Thus, adopting asymmetric teaching patterns makes learning more interactive and experientially relevant. Students have a chance to engage experientially and practice what they have learned.They are able to observe the application of the theoretical concepts in practice, process that application and make learning relevant.  Experiential learning provides a deeper understanding of subject matters, an ability to engage in a life-long learning and makes handling ambiguous situation critically and electively so much easier and effective.

Even breaking through the conventional means of evaluation and teaching methods, the unconventional system of grading, recurrent assessment through practical & internship, frequent professional visits and training session by experts has facilitated the practical shift of education system. The idea is to prepare them to become a professional right from the beginning and be intuitively close to the society they will be serving.

The base of the education system lies in the idea of providing sound and good quality education to the entire student population so as to produce excellence in professional and research fields and to ensure that the future nation-builders are enabled to contribute efficiently in sustainable growth of the world. Adding on to this is the report on Gross Enrolment Ratio which has seen steep increase from 20% to 24.5% in 2016.

The vision of Indian higher education system is to decrease disengagement and produces commitment and dedication toward careers so as to provide reciprocity in learning. Professionals who can help in nation building are what the new trends in education aim to create. Regardless of the challenges afore-mentioned, it is vital to look for solutions that can analyse the threads of disconnect by connecting threads by praising and communicating the efforts and methods of all institutes and colleges that have students claiming to benefit from these new forms of learning and engaged teaching. Institutes contributing to provide sound higher education need to join hands with all other institutes that think on similar dynamic lines and have a shared vision and mission to take education to new heights.

The challenge for liberal educators is to design learning environments and instruction so that students will be able to use what they learn in appropriate new contexts, that is, to enable a relevant and new-age transfer of learning.

 

CASHLESS TO CONTACTLESS PAYMENT: COVID-19 SPREAD

Uncategorized, ,

 

In this era, where the entire world is suffering from COVID-19 pandemic, cash is no longer a king. According to WHO (World health organization), the novel corona virus may spread through cash payments, debit Card and credit card payments. As per a scientific paper published, the virus outbreak found the virus can live on cardboard for up to 24 hours and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. Banknote avoidance is happening in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Iran. Germany is the cash loving economy and it has also switch to contactless payment. In India when the corona virus is still in the early phase, this is the right time to adopt the contactless payment as compared to cashless payments. Hence, it becomes essential to promote contactless transaction as compared to currency notes or cashless transactions.

CASHLESS VERSUS CONTACTLESS PAYMENT: 

Mostly people take cashless and contactless payment as interchangeable term. But there is lot of difference between cashless payment and contactless payment.

Any type of payment that is made without using cash is considered as Cashless payment methods. The examples are credit card payments, Bank transfers, debit card payments, mobile payments, and digital wallets. To complete the cashless purchase, the customer doesn’t need to have any cash.

Contactless payments are those where debit cards or credit cards that either use near-field communication (NFC) or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In contactless payment, no PIN or signature for card is required to make the payment — you can simply tap and go. One needs not to do swiping or inserting your card in any POS machine or ATM, you simply can just wave the card near the reader to complete your payment.

RBI INITIATIVE FOR CONTACTLESS PAYMENT:

In our dream to build a feasible digital world and to come alive, wireless technologies always have a critical role to play. In India, we have reached to the next level of innovation in fintech domain. Any full proved payment method should have following three features:

Accessibility and interoperability: Accepted anywhere and offers multiple uses

Convenience of transaction: Clutter free smooth gesture, like tap and go

Speed of transaction: local secure processing with batch synchronization.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took the first step in 2019 to promote contactless payment. Now for transactions less than Rs 2,000, the customer can do a payment within a fraction of seconds.

CONTACTLESS CARDS IN INDIA

  1. Mastercard Tap & Go: Mastercard offers Contactless Credit  card or Debit Card partnering with almost all Indian Private and PSU banks.
  2. Visa payWave: Visa PayWave also offers Tap & Go contactless payments and the card also globally accepted.
  3. Rupay Contactless Card: Developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), It is an Indian alternative of global card issuing brands such as Visa or Mastercard.
  4. Paytm- Contactless Card: Paytm also offers a Contactless payment card, named as Taptopay. The card can be issued at designated venues at the time of ticket purchase or online tickets on Paytm.
  5. National Common Mobility Card (NCMC): The NCMC card is a Debit or Credit card that can be used to make payment for transport anywhere in the country, like Metro, Bus, sub-urban railways, toll-plaza, parking, etc. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has released Contactless smart card launched on 4 March 2019. NCMC is maintained by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and it is also Rupay Powered. The RFID reader is developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and NCMC is also partnering with Indian Banks.

CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS APPS IN INDIA

Contactless Payments Apps work similarly to contactless Debit or Credit card, where you don’t have to carry physical cards, instead your smartphone works as your Contactless Payment Card. Currently, Samsung Pay is technically the only App operates using the near-field communication (NFC) Payment technology. However there are few more Contactless Payments Apps in India you can install on your smartphones.

  • Samsung Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Pockets by ICICI Bank
  • Ultracash
  • PhonePe
  • Mobikwik
  • Yono by SBI
  • HDFC PayZapp
  • BHIM Axis Pay
  • My FASTag App

Contactless Payments can turn the face of India’s Digital Payment Systems. The question comes that how will you know that your card is supporting Contactless Payments or not. In order to identify, you will find a symbol similar to Wi-Fi at any side of your Debit or Credit Card. Indian are still depending on physical cash for doing Low-Value retail transactions. With the acceptance of several Contactless Payments Apps and Govt. of India’s thrust on the “Digital India” campaign, we definitely expect a low spread of COVID-19 in our nation through currency.

Design Thinking : The 5 Stages

Uncategorized, , , , ,

Uncertainty abounds nowadays- wars, oil prices, pandemics, start-ups – acting as challengers and disrupting businesses; during such times, being conscious of sustainability and ‘Design Thinking’ redefines business models.

The uncertainty constantly challenges businesses to review and rethink their focus, their business, and most importantly their survival. In such a state of complexity, there is possibly a need to question the basics and revisit the obvious, and that is where design thinking comes in. It offers a thinking approach to redefine all of this in a more human-centric manner.

So what is design thinking? It is purely being more humane and empathetic with the belief that the end-user is at the heart of all decision making

Design thinking is a process which integrates critical thinking, cross functional collaboration, empathy, iteration, & curiosity to deliver breakthrough-outcomes. Companies are increasingly leveraging design thinking to achieve quantum growth.

The thought process while starting with a consumer centric approach also has to pass through the test of technical viability and business feasibility.

The 5 stages of design thinking are-

Stage 1 Empathize – Research the Target Group-User (TGU) needs

We have to set our assumptions and biases aside when we investigate the possible problem that is being attempted to be solved. We have to immerse ourselves in the context of the problem and possibly talk to TGU, who faces it, and speak to the possible experts and even look at similar challenges faced by, and solutions of, diverse businesses.

There are ways to understand the same, namely, FGD, Focus Interviews, Storytelling and Empathy maps. Empathy maps are particularly useful as they map what people say, do, think and feel in the context of the problem. “Observe & Hear Closely”. It allows us to understand how people feel, behave, and experience the problem and possibly how they might see a solution.

Stage 2 Define – The needs & problems of the TGU need to be defined

The insights gathered need to be summarized in a “human-centric” problem rather than business goals. This can be done by identifying the frustrations and challenges that people face through empathy maps, and how people are solving problems and what we need to do for them to find newer and easier solutions to overcome their frustrations.

To exemplify, rather than defining how to get a 20% increase in online sales of juice in Gurgaon, maybe we need to understand the consumption pattern of a health-conscious consumer, which could mean that consumers looking for healthy food may need to be educated on the meaning of ‘health’.

Stage 3 Ideate – Challenge the Assumptions & Evolve ideas

Once the problem/pain-points are identified it is imperative to start ideating and brainstorming the possible alternatives and evolve ideas. Prioritize the breadth rather than depth while developing ideas, as we need to solve a larger range of challenges. The focus needs to be on developing ideas which lead us to formulate prototypes & test the hypotheses.

So basically ideate and evaluate, and sketch your ideas and brainstorm in order to develop possible metrics against which to assess them. A good way to evaluate is to put ideas on the table and ask for a vote.

The ideas post evaluation with maximum votes are put through a prototype test.

Stage 4 Prototype – Start by Creating Alternate Solutions

This is when the idea identified gets a physical form. The same is defined and put through a paper test where a ‘what-if’ analysis could also be done. This helps to ensure that significant gaps are debated on and plugged before the prototype is put through a test. The prototyping stage should be a realistic discussion on what will work and what will not and changes are incorporated in a circular and iterative process, until there seems to be a workable structure. Maybe at this stage it is a good idea to put multiple test cases in discussion as that allows the breadth of possible solutions.

Stage 5 Test – Test the Solutions you feel are the best in ground situations, simulations, pilots

This stage could be considered to be an extension of the empathizing stage .This stage helps to understand in more detail the pain-points of the TGU and explore if the possible solutions being offered are really giving the desired outcomes, those which really help TGU change their behavior or take different decisions towards finding solutions. The answer to gauge is whether a significant impact has been made. It is important to get a feedback; there are various ways in which companies seem to be doing it – simulations, pilot test markets, test groups.

The objective is to put the best possible ideas forward and be open to critical feedback towards finding the right possible solutions. In fact this stage may even reveal that the problems identified and/or solutions proposed were not determined correctly.

Design thinking is an intimate way to get to know the TGU and problem definition better, so that the possible solutions to identified problems have a higher chance of success.

Questions to reflect

  1. Do companies succeed with design thinking ?

-Yes they do. Some examples of successful deployment of design thinking are listed below-

https://hbr.org/2015/09/how-indra-nooyi-turned-design-thinking-into-strategy

https://www.bbva.com/en/airbnb-design-thinking-success-story/

  1. But do companies nowadays “really” use this approach and do they spend enough time in each stage before formalizing a launch or a solution?

-We see a lot of initiatives-launches which did not work due to incomplete efforts in stages of ideation, prototyping and testing…(discuss)

  1. Maybe design thinking approach is one of the reasons why Reliance Retail and Jio are hyper growth platforms?

A Ray of Hope amidst the COVID – 19 Crises

Uncategorized

The world is witnessing and fighting its worst pandemic from past 3 months. Public is scared, policy makers are looking for desperate regulations and measures, basic service providers are doing extra time and doctors are exhausted completely. We have no other option but to lock down ourselves and the entire community.  Everything around us look pessimistic, gloomy and sans hope. But wait are we humans not the species who can find silver lining in the most dreadful situations? Yes we are and there are silver linings in the Corona Virus as well.

Back to Human basics

The virus has clearly shaken us however, ensures we must appreciate the luxuries we got, abundance of products, freedom and health which we were taking as granted. We all were lost in mundane busy-ness and have no time to appreciate the most basic things. This corona virus made us realized the relevance of actually important possessions of human life- the love of family, the stories of elderly, appreciating the moments shared with our partners, the role of community and most important a time to reevaluate and reinvent ourselves. We are also reaching to our basic habits of washing hands and feet when coming from outside, changing immediately the clothes once we are back home, greeting people with the famous Indian Namaste.

Healing the Nature

The whole world is witnessing the healing process- when humans are retreating nature is returning.  Institutions and entertainment places are shut, tourist spots are without people, fewer vehicles on roads – Sounds bizarre but the results are great. Pollution level across the world has come down in many metropolitan cities. The Air Quality index is below 150 in Delhi, water bodies are cleaning, dolphins are returning to the coast in Venice, swans can be seen in canals instead of Gondolas, otters are roaming freely in Singapore, Egyptian geese are on tarmac in Israel, penguins taking strolls in aquariums of Chicago, coral reef healing in Australia, deer and monkeys coming back to streets in Japan and Thailand. Nature is thriving when humans are quarantined. The indications are clear -mother earth is sending us the signal which we must understand that humans do not own earth, they co-exist here. Cohabitation is important and humans cannot put life of other living beings on earth at stake. The corona Virus made us thinks that we must preserve our natural habitats, do not overuse the resource and if we cannot do the same on our own then, nature have its own extreme means.

 Corona Virus must be thanked for making us undermine every material aspect of this world and giving us a chance to build the world from inception. It could be observed around us that we are connected not only physically but yogically as well. The time has come to view the world and our existence from a newer perspective and the survival is based on the perspective we will choose.

Associate Professor Economics and International Business, IILM University