DIED helps organizations build creative culture and the internal systems required to sustain innovation and launch new ventures. DIED has been ranked as one of the most Innovative companies in the world by business leaders In a global survey by Boston Consulting Group; Ranked #10 on Fast Company’s list of the Top 25 Most Innovative Companies; Winner of 38 Red Dot awards, 28 IF Hannover awards, and more IDEA awards than any other design firm; Ranked #16 on Fortunes list of 100 most-favored employers by MBA students; Awarded the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s National Design Award for Product Design
Indeed DIED has proven themselves successful in so many ways and established themselves as supreme in this innovative world that we live in. Why has DIED been successful? The reason is because of their utmost approach: Design Thinking. According to Tim Brown, CEO and President of DIED, design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success. Thinking like a designer can change the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy.
Design Thinking” approach by DIED brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who arena trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges. The design thinking process is best thought of as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps. There are three spaces to keep in mind: inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. Inspiration Is the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions. Ideation Is the process of generating, evolving, and testing Ideas.
Implementation Is the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives. Their new or existing operations could look in the future under this system-? and build road maps for getting there. Methods include business model prototyping, data visualization, innovation strategy, organizational design, qualitative and quantitative research, and IP liberation. All of Dido’s work is done in consideration of the capabilities of our clients and the needs of their customers. They assess and reassess designs. Dido’s goal is to deliver appropriate, actionable, and tangible strategies.
The outcome: new, innovative avenues for growth that are grounded in business viability and market desirability. DIED strives to design products that consumers actively want. In many cases they have to “dig deep” because they are trying to create consumer-friendly solutions and the consumers often don’t know what they want or what they need. The most difficult challenge that DIED faced in conducting research and designing product is in order to achieve these consumer-friendly solutions, DIED tries to uncover deep insights through a variety of human-centered research methods.
They needed to discover hourly what humans want in their busy everyday lives. 2. In the end, DIED creates great solutions for companies that then receive all the credit. Should DIED try to create more brand awareness for itself? Why or why not? DIED has created and commands a very well defined “niche” in the business world and is very successful in that niche and any movement out of that niche can be difficult and dangerous. Should DIED create more brand awareness for itself? Personally, we would answer that in both yes and no.
It really depends on the company’s nature of work, products and core competencies. Either way, DIED is still ell known and very much successful in the business world. INTUIT Intuit is the world’s largest maker of financial management and tax software, is now branding itself as the Small Business software company with the goal of helping businesses to “start, run ; grow” fast. Intuit is best known for the household software brands Quicken, Cookbooks and Turbot created for small businesses, consumers and accountants.
As the world changes so has Intuit, determined by the passion for inventing solutions to solve important problems, perfecting those solutions and delighting its customers. Intuit started small in 1983 with Quicken arsenal finance software, simplifying a common household dilemma: balancing the family checkbook. Little more than two decades later, Intuits revenue tops $3 billion, being publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, and recognized as America’s most-admired software company and one of the country’s best places to work. . Elaborate on Intuits use of customer research. Why did it work so well for the company? Intuit ensured that the new hires understood the company’s Holy Grail: A Happy Customer. Customer focus, wherein Intuit makes a difference in the customers’ lives, is the everyday Mantra practiced by everyone at Intuit. Customer-Intuitive Design By talking directly to prospective and ultimately current customers, Intuit founders and product managers built a deep understanding of exactly what the customer needs and pain points were.
This led to defining software products to solve these fundamental customer needs. Whereas most software makers before Intuit were focused on creating “complex” software with an elaborate set of features that customers hardly ever used (and were confused), Intuit created new innovations in software design by creating software that a customer really cared for, and can benefit from on an everyday basis. Intuit engineers and product managers will go at lengths to understand the customer’s mindset – from buying, to installing to using software, and becoming a loyal customer. Customer-driven Marketing and Product Management Most of the Software Industry before Intuit saw Marketing’s role as marketing communications and brand marketing. However, Intuit realized early on that the marketing department must contribute as the company develops new products. And the role of Product managers was born wherein the Product Managers act as product business managers, oversaw income statements and all aspects of building the business.
According to Scott Cook, the co-founder of Intuit, product managers must act as “champions of their products, embodying the voice of the customer not Just for product development and marketing communications, but also for technical support, and overseeing the critical feedback loop between technical support and product development. ” Marketing also assisted the “Product Launch”, wherein besides managing advertising, public relations and upgrade mailings, Marketing also created internal launch readiness, trained technical support and customer service, and created financial forecasts for the sales volumes for operations and planning.
Intuit spends a significant amount of time and money on consumer research each year and they state that it is “critical for Intuit to know exactly how customers use and feel about their products” because of the nature and pace of technology, the shifting customer and consumer needs, and the competitiveness of the industry. Intuit uses, site visits, lab studies, and remote studies to keep pace with the consumer. Without this spend on research, Intuit might not have kept up with these changes. 2. Could anything go wrong for Intuit now that it has beaten out Microsoft? Why or why not?
Yes, anything still could go wrong even if it has beaten out Microsoft. If Intuit would what they have. And if Intuit decides to “sit on its laurels”, anything could wrong. Financial pressures to increase stock prices/premiums/dividends could hasten that decision. Especially now that Microsoft is competing vigorously with Intuit, the challenges facing Intuit, especially its Quicken franchise, are numerous. Intuit must protect its traditional business from new software being written by small developers. 3. How should Intuit gauge the results of its research among younger consumers with mobile devices?
Considering the responses among younger consumers with mobile devices would give them enough knowledge since younger society nowadays are more inclined to new innovations. Intuit has already made dramatic and substantial steps in gauging the younger consumers by classifying each blob post according to velocity, share of voice, voice quality, and sentiment. They were able to solve customer problems in ways with mobile devices that were never solved through PC’s or web-based products. These are groundbreaking classifications and understanding and interpreting this data is the key to gauge the research of the younger consumers.
