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Ideation for Innovation

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Based on the previous topics covered such as Design Thinking and Business Model Innovation we were tasked with:
  • Selecting an industry of interest;
  • Defining a problem in a particular industry; and
  • Proposing an innovative solutions to the challenges.

What is the role of the new concepts in digital business?
This task involved interacting and communicating effectively with business stakeholders. One of our group members presented an overview of her business. She proceeded to outline the challenges they experience within the Fast Consumer Moving Goods industry. These challenges include:
  • The inability to maintain an end-to-end visibility of the supply chain;
  • The conflicting KPIs that caused competition instead of cooperation;
  • The inability plan and co-ordinate the supply chain effectively;
  • The inability to understand the customer or to "hear their voice" that impacts customer-centricity; and
  • The inefficiencies in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. 
We proceeded to use the Design Thinking model to ideate. We brainstormed and came up with ideas that could solve these issues. We also tried to put the customer at the centre of the ideation process by understanding their needs and requirements. Finally, we agreed on possible solutions based on the ideas we have come up.

We proceeded to present the problems, ideas and solutions in graphical format. We did an audio presentation for this project too. The emphasis was to effectively communicate our solutions.

This particular task enabled us to operationalize the various concepts we had learnt since the start of the course. We had to use Design Thinking methods to solve the business problem, we viewed the business model and tried to understand how the technology solutions could impact this business model. We gained an in-depth understanding of the industry problems and outlined the solution objectives. We then proceeded to provide innovative solutions, and communicated these solutions to external stakeholders (fellow class mates).

I also enjoyed the fact that we got to use Google's Jamboards as a tool in the ideation process. This enabled us to quickly add or remove ideas without stifling progress. This also enabled us to visualize different elements of our solution. You can view our Jamboard below.




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