Understanding the Value of Design Thinking for Strategic Business Planning and Experience Creation
Creators: name: Huang, Yujia
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2023
Subjects: Design Thinking
Business Strategy
Experience Design
Socially Responsible Design
Retail Innovation

description: Design thinking is often viewed as a toolkit for constructive discussion
 and development at a project level and as a structure for
 interdisciplinary collaboration at a management level in the context of
 business practice. However, its application at a strategic level to
 translate the business mission into holistic business experiences is an
 underexplored avenue of research. This research study aims to understand
 the purpose and value of design thinking for strategic business planning
 and experience creation through the lens of city-based physical retailing.
 Although this is an academic study, answering the key research question is
 primarily embedded in observing business practices. The research study
 utilised an exploratory research methodology approach, critically
 analysing three comprehensive data sets through a review of scholarly
 articles, an exploratory workshop, and case study analysis.
 
 
 The findings from the literature review supported the potential of design
 thinking for strategic business planning activities. A carefully designed
 two-day design thinking workshop was conducted, in which 40 experienced
 designers and professionals tested the assumptions of design thinking
 value through a hypothetical business planning project. To confirm the key
 contributions of design thinking to strategic retail planning and
 experience creation, 14 exploratory city-based physical retail case
 studies from three global contexts (UK, Japan, and China) were selected
 from over 150+ retail store visits. Data were collected through in-store
 observation, document review, interviews, and a detailed graphic review.
 Insights from the applied research contexts were used to generate the four
 design value principles and provide a deeper understanding of the
 strengths and limitations of this research study.
 
 
 Research findings confirmed that design thinking could be adopted as an
 organisational innovation driving force to foster strategic business
 planning through a purpose-led approach. The research proposes Four Design
 Value Principles, which include: 1. Design for product and service
 innovation, 2. Design for enhanced multidimensional interactions, 3.
 Design for experience and atmosphere creation, and 4. Design to achieve
 transcendent values and impact. The design contributions at each level
 provide directions for business innovation and associated strategic
 planning activities. Furthermore, the research argues that
 'experiences' are a new lens of measurement for compelling
 business offerings. Guide by the four design value principles, the
 researcher discovered that businesses should not plan the product,
 business experience, customer relationship, and corporate social
 responsibility as separate entities but orchestrate them strategically
 around the business core competencies and mission to achieve commercial
 success and higher humanity values. Therefore, the researcher proposed to
 use people, place, and planet as purpose-led innovation catalysts to
 direct the strategy planning, and transferred the four design value
 principles into an applicable strategic action radar chart for businesses
 to evaluate their strategic planning activities and encompasses a
 systematic consideration of holistic experience creation. Although time
 and resource constraints limit the further discovery of the proposed four
 design value principles application, it provides a new understanding on
 the practice of design thinking and establishes a foundation to extend the
 study into new areas such as measuring strategic business planning,
 virtual business experience creation, and design for socially responsible
 business practice.