INNOVATION SPECIAL.... Inspiring Innovation through Design Thinking – II

Inspiring Innovation through

Design Thinking – II 

There was no need for Bhopal based  newspaper Dainik Bhaskar group to expand dramatically. They were steadily growing.

But they started with a challenge – an impossible aspiration: be number one on the day of launch

in every city. In almost all of their launches, they did just that and, in a short period of time they became one of the

largest newspaper groups in India in terms of circulation. Their strategy later became a model for several, and, even established newspapers. How did Dainik Bhaskar grow over 1000 percent in eight years, and in 10 years achieved a figure that others in the global newspaper business have taken nearly a century to achieve? What magic did they do in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad

and Amritsar & Jalandhar to enter the market as number one? People don’t easily change newspaper-reading habits and if they do, it takes several years of persistent

wooing to get them to change. Newspapers take decades to reach any sort of leadership position. The more newspapers you sell, the more you lose money until advertising revenue catches up.

Indian Experience:

Most surveys are superficial with no genuine intent to engage with the customer. In Dainik Bhaskar, 700

surveyors set up from scratch met 2,00,000 potential newspaper buyers in Jaipur in an experience enhancing survey to find out more about the customer and their needs.

Once the survey is finished, they went back with the results to the households already met. They wanted to evolve the newspaper with the customer, and asked them what they are not getting in their current newspaper and what they are looking forward in a future newspaper. Again they went to the 2, 00,000 customers, showed them what they had created based on their

feedback and asked for advance subscription. (When I see my idea is being implemented, I’m very likely to buy it.) They also offered 25 % discount on the newsstand

price and an immediate refund if not satisfied. The consumer now had no reason not to subscribe.

Human centered approach:

That is ‘Design Thinking’ – a methodology that includes the full spectrum. It is a human-centred approach powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives

and what they like or dislike about the way products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.

Thomas Alva Edison invented electric bulb and built an industry around it. He understood that without a system of electric power generation and transmission, his invention is a useless device. He imagined holistically and had great consideration to user’s needs and preferences. He made innovation a profession that blended art,craft, science, business acumen, and a clear understanding of customers and markets.

Porus Munshi in his book ‘Making break through innovations happen’ concludes, “Ideas are important in an innovation journey, but they are not the starting point. It is like an expedition to scale an extreme peak

that has never been climbed before and innovation involves finding ideas at every step of the way. It’s not just about reaching the summit. It is about developing

capabilities to reach other summits.”

The job of a designer, according to Peter Drucker, is ‘converting need in to demand.’ It sounds, as though, just figure out what people want and then give it to them. That is to put the human beings in the centre. It is

helping people to articulate latent needs they may not even know they have, and this is the challenge of design thinkers.

The conventional market research can help only in incremental improvements, but not lead to break-through ideas. Because the people easily adapt to inconveniences

(complacent), that they are not even aware that they are doing so, as Henry Ford put it, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘a faster horse.’”

IDEO uses three elements successfully to articulate the hidden needs of people – insight, observation, and empathy.

Insight is going out into the world and observing the actual experiences of the customers as they live through their daily lives. People perform ‘thoughtless acts’ daily

– like using a block of stone as door stop or as a hammer. Their actual behaviours can provide us with invaluable clues about their range of unmet needs.

IDEO once took the challenge of addressing the epidemic of obesity among children and teens. Their human factors

experts met one Jennifer Portnick of Feeling Good Fitness. She wanted to become a Jazzercise dance instructor, but the company’s requirement that franchisees project, “a fit appearance” stood up against

her. She countered that “fit” and “large” are not incompatible and fought legally and forced the company to drop its weight discriminatory policy.

As Jennifer was in the margins of the bell-curve, she was in a position to help the design team frame the problem in a new andinsightful way. The assumption that all fat

people want to be thin, that weight is inversely proportional to happiness, or that large size implies lack of discipline is to prejudge the problem.

January 2018 / CS123