Design Thinking: Solving Business Problems Nowadays

In the rapidly evolving business landscape, the ability to innovate and creatively solve problems is more crucial than ever. As the co-founder and graphic designer at Brutko.com, I've witnessed firsthand the transformative power of design thinking in addressing complex and unexpected business challenges. Design Thinking is an approach that has been traditionally associated with the design field, but that has proved to be a powerful asset for fostering innovation and strategic growth across various industries.

Design Thinking's Essence

Design thinking is a problem-solving process that prioritizes deep empathy for users, a collaborative approach, and iterative prototypes to explore innovative solutions. Unlike conventional problem-solving methods that start with a predefined solution, design thinking begins with understanding the user's needs and experiences. This shift in perspective allows businesses to understand new and less obvious opportunities and develop innovative solutions that truly resonate with their target audience.

Beyond Aesthetics

We've applied design thinking to go beyond mere aesthetics, using it as a strategic tool to solve broader business problems. For instance, when approached by a client struggling with customer retention, we didn't just look into redesigning their website or updating their branding. Instead, we dove into their customer journey, identifying pain points and areas where our client's services didn't align with customer expectations. Through iterative prototyping and testing, we were able to propose changes that significantly improved the customer experience and, consequently, their client retention rates.

Fostering Innovation and Strategic Growth

Innovation is not just about coming up with new ideas; it's about solving problems in new and creative ways that add value. Design thinking encourages looking at problems from various angles, often leading to breakthrough innovations that can drive strategic growth. For example, by applying design thinking, we've helped clients expand into new markets by identifying unmet needs that their products or services could address in unique ways. Clarity and straightforwardness are some of the main goals to consider. We can't even count how many times we have seen a design piece that looked "nice", but had nothing to do with the goals it aimed to reach, or did not contain some of the most basic information it was supposed to communicate, making it an obsolete piece, which takes us to the next point.

Collaborative Problem-Solving

One of the core principles of design thinking is collaboration across disciplines. As the point above depicts, even if a design piece looks incredible, if there are problems in the copy or elements missing, the whole effort put into the design makes little sense.

By involving diverse perspectives in the problem-solving process, companies can uncover insights that might not be apparent from a single viewpoint. This collaborative approach not only enriches the solution but also fosters a culture of innovation within the organization.

Special emphasis on making sure that you have everything we need before starting a design project is essential. The goals and means need to be clear, and everything should be aligned to guarantee successful deliverables and powerful results.

Implementation

For businesses looking to implement design thinking, the journey begins with fostering a culture of empathy, curiosity, and openness to experimentation. It's about encouraging teams to question assumptions, without taking anything for granted, empathize with users, and embrace failure as a stepping stone to innovation.

Start with Empathy: Understand your users deeply—what they need, what they value, and how they interact with your product or service.

Define the Problem: Clearly articulate the problem you're trying to solve, based on insights gathered during the empathy phase.

Ideate: Generate a wide range of ideas without judgment, encouraging creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

Prototype: Create simple, low-fidelity prototypes to test and refine your ideas.

Test and Learn: Test your prototypes with real users, gather feedback, and iterate. This phase is crucial for learning and improvement.

Conclusion

As businesses continue to navigate a complex and ever-changing environment, the principles of design thinking offer a roadmap for innovation and growth. By viewing problems through a design lens, organizations can unlock new opportunities, enhance customer experiences, and drive sustainable growth.

At Brutko.com, we, Ale Santoliva and Kirill Brutko believe that design thinking is not just a process but a mindset that can transform the way businesses approach challenges and innovate for the future.