How To Use Design Thinking As Part Of Your Digital Transformation Strategy

 

Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative problem-solving approach that aims to create innovative solutions by focusing on empathy, experimentation, and collaboration. The main components of design thinking can be broken down into the following stages: 𝟏) 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐳𝐞: Understand the needs, emotions, motivations, and context of the end-users or customers. By putting yourself in their shoes, you can gain insights into their experiences and identify the real problems they face. 𝟐) 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞: Clearly articulate the problem statement. This involves synthesizing the information and insights gathered during the empathize stage to define the users' needs and challenges. A well-defined problem statement helps guide the ideation process and ensures that the focus remains on addressing the users' pain points. 𝟑) 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞: Generate a wide range of possible solutions to the defined problem. 𝟒) 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞: Create low-fidelity prototypes of the most promising solutions. These can be simple sketches, physical models, or digital mockups that help visualize and test the concepts. 𝟓) 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭: Test the prototypes with real users to gather feedback and validate the proposed solutions. This feedback is crucial to understanding how well the solution addresses the user's needs and to identify any areas for improvement. Based on the test results, the team may need to iterate through the earlier stages to refine the solution or explore new ideas. 𝟔) 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 (not a formal stage, but often included): Solutions or concepts developed during the design thinking process are brought to life. It can be seen as part of, or following, the Test stage, depending on the specific circumstances. During this phase, the solution is rolled out, and its impact in the real world is observed. According to a 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐇𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲, Since 2015, design thinking has grown by 46% in IT departments and 92% in Operations & Manufacturing. 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠: • 60% – design thinking has improved the working culture • 67% – more efficient innovation process • 58% – users integrated more frequently • 30% – helped to save costs • 33% – helped increase sales 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬: https://www.innovationtraining.org/design-thinking-2022-study-from-hpi/

********************************************* • Follow Jeff Winter on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyrwinter/ to stay current on Industry 4.0 and other cool tech trends

The Smart IT Strategy That Saves Every CIO Time, Money, And A Whole Lot Of Frustration

How do you search for IT infrastructure and telecommunications services when you need them? 

It can be a costly, time consuming, frustrating, and high effort experience...unless you have a secret weapon.  It's even better when that secret weapon is free.

If you are like most companies, you might go online to see which service providers can service your area, realizing that not all of them present accurate information about your specific location online at their web sites.

If you have multiple offices across the country or even across the world and want to standardize on one carrier, what are your network service provider options?

When you find one, then you play telephone tag with that carrier for several days until you find the right person there that can answer your questions about service, availability and price.

And all this assumes that you already know exactly what you’re looking for … don’t expect them to take the time to ask and fully understand your application or requirements, or in doing so, to suggest a better approach, perhaps even with a less expensive option. Then a few more days pass before you finally get a price from them for something that hopefully, maybe, with any luck, will meet your needs.

Then you repeat the process for the next carrier that can service your location while another week passes, and so on.

So say you found four service providers who could service your location with your requested service. Given about a week to get a price from each one, now a full month has passed since your first phone call to find out if this will fit into your budget. In the meantime, your competition is passing you by and business continues to be prosperous … for your competition, who found a better way of doing this mundane and arduous task. More on that in a minute.

Do you see the fundamental problems here? Let’s outline them:

Problem #1: It’s now a month later and you are still at basically the same place you were a month ago with no circuit on order.

Problem #2: Are you really comfortable that you have contacted ALL the first tier carriers that can service your location? Could there be others?

Problem #3: If you found a “super price” from a second or third tier carrier, are you comfortable they can really provide what you need; comfortable enough to not use a first tier carrier? Yes of course you search for reviews online but is what you find fact, fiction, marketing hype, or even comments from an isolated eternally-disgruntled customer?

Problem #4: How comfortable are you that the prices you were given for the circuit are as aggressive as the carrier is willing to be with them? How do you know if better pricing is possible with a first tier carrier?

Problem #5: If you order the circuit, sure they have 24×7 tech support but who’s going to go to bat for you if the carrier is not resolving the problem or the people in billing don’t understand why your invoice is wrong … again?

Problem #6: You’ve got a business to run, and taking time to deal with the problems above are not allowing you to focus on much more important tasks to make and keep your company as competitive and profitable as possible.

We Have A Solution To These Problems For You

We are telecom professionals with many years of experience in the world of telecommunications and circuits, and we work with 90+ first tier and top tier carriers every day.

Use us as your telecom go-to people when you need telcom services!

You don’t have to (and should NOT have to) wait weeks to get pricing back from all the first tier carriers that can service your location. With our patented software and technology, we can provide you with that information in a matter of minutes, showing all your reputable carrier options on one page.

And since we have taken the time to talk with you to fully understand your application and requirements, both for today as well as in the future, we can suggest alternate technologies and other possible solutions that could save you money, perhaps approaches that you weren’t even aware of or didn’t realize could be provided in your area.

Price? We have a Low Price Guarantee for you. For any quote we provide you, we guarantee that the pricing shown for each carrier is the lowest price that that carrier will offer, even if you go to that carrier directly. The reason we can do that is because of the volume of business that we provide to our partner carriers every month, which allow them to enable us to give you that lowest price, guaranteed.

Can we also resolve problem #5 above? Again we are there for you. Based on the volume of business that we do with our partner carriers, we have a direct line into senior management at each of those carriers. If you are ever having a problem with your circuit that the carrier is not resolving, please let us know, because we are happy to go to bat for you to make things happen on your behalf for the entire life of your circuit.

 Let Us Be Your Telecom Broker

You are not charged a penny for our services, so use us as your telecom broker. You’re getting the guaranteed lowest price from 90+ first tier and top tier carriers, and you are getting service after the sale for as long as that circuit is active.

It doesn’t get better than that.

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