Hello Future!

Companies are facing many challenges today. From the uncertainty meeting evolving customer needs, new market entrants and advancements in technologies to the continually changing restrictions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The research project will investigate companies integrating design and strategy to not only meet the needs of consumers today but to take into account the future to develop new products and services.

Companies today are faced with rapid shifts of change from events, globalization, customer needs, technologies, and markets. And with these changes comes lots of uncertainty about the future, posing many problems. For a company if you do not know what the future holds it is very hard to make a plan, regardless of how agile one is.

The future is a concern for the disciplines of design and strategy. Design in solving complex problems through making new products to transform a user’s existing situation into a better one. And strategy by creating a plan to achieve a goal. However, traditional approaches and on their own no longer suffice in times of rapid change and uncertainty. A traditional design thinking process reveals issues within the gap between the identification of a need today and its relevancy upon the products release.

With the business community the project will look into how companies are taking a proactive instead of reactive stance about the future by integrating design and strategy. Strategy through the trend spotting, identifying signals of change, and their implications. Design to handle ambiguity by including stakeholders, envision scenarios, and create and validate prototypes.

The project will result in a model and suggestions for students on how a design process can take into account the future to develop new products and services. Learning how they operationalize these are important for small and medium sized businesses also faced with these challenges and students of digital concept development to be successful in their internships and their future employment in them.

The model and suggestions can be used by SMVs looking for a structured approached for product goals like meet an emerging need, be first in a space, or disrupt a market.