Managers of Synergia Consulting Ltd. joined the MIT online course on the topic of design thinking in accordance to build their capacities, to improve existing and to develop the new services and products that will satisfy the customer needs.
Taking into consideration the very insecure and hard period we are all facing due to the COVID 19 pandemic, it became obvious the need for new skills and approaches to ensure the stability of the company. Also shifting to online jobs enhanced the necessity to adopt new tools and techniques to approach the clients and set up every day processes. Design thinking emphasizes EMPATHY as the main skill to identify the customer needs and understanding their expectations from “their shoes”. It requires designing, investigating, developing, and brainstorming different concepts. During the course Maja Dragojevic Bacic and Maja Jurisic were going through the whole process of product and service design, working on individual assignments as well as working in the group and developing the tool for financing management of SMEs – the product ‘Synergia Consulting Ltd.’ is developing and aims to put on the market next year.
‘Innovation of Products and Services’ Project
Before bringing the final decision of selling the product or service we need to answer three questions: Is it desirable? Is it financially viable? Can we win the competition? The first step is to focus on users’ experiences, especially their emotional ones.
“To build empathy with our users, we organized a set of meetings with our clients and checked on their needs to develop their business, we were following our competitors and drew a draft prototype of a web and mobile application…” disclosed the managers from Synergia Consulting Ltd., “We brought conclusions about what our clients want and need. Team members discussed the emotional resonance of a value proposition as much as they discuss utility and product requirements. Following the example from the course, we developed the needs statements that will help us in developing the marketing and communication strategy. During the whole process, lots of questions and new ideas came to our minds, and therefore we will rethink and recreate the company strategy in the following months using the tools we learn about.”
After finishing the course and earning the certificate, they started the team workshops with the employees, continuing developing the tool for financial management and applying everything learned in developing the strategy for the next 2 years.
Discover “INNOVATION of PRODUCTS and SERVICES” here