Today, companies with the success we covet, like Samsung, IBM, Apple, 3M, Samsung, and AirBnB, have incorporated design thinking into their strategies and corporate cultures.

Design Thinking is utilized in many firms as a catalyst for distinction, novel products or services, and innovation. Though it has no one definition, it essentially centers individuals and offers a discipline for problem-solving creativity.

England uses design thinking/management as a management technique while making managerial decisions, resolving social issues, and conducting social innovation studies because it firmly believes in it and has internalized its benefits. As a strategy, it takes care to go via the Design Council, which serves as an independent entity that offers consulting to the state.

The following definition of design management can be found in the Design Council's mission statement: Better processes, better goods, greater living places, and better performance all rely on design as a fundamental strategy.

Should we therefore include it on our management agenda? Is it really so crucial?

Today's discussion does not concern the product's manufacturing capacity, availability of resources, or quality. Why? The past twenty or thirty years had been centered on marketing, while the 1990s were focused on quality. The emphasis during that time was on production capacity up until the 1950s. We are currently debating the topics of innovation, digital transformation, whether robots will take our jobs, IoT (Internet of Things), Agile management, emotional intelligence, virtual organizations, or new leadership competencies that will fuel all these changes in both academic studies and the business world.

Here, Design Thinking aids in acquiring the abilities required for the contemporary concerns on the 21st century agenda.

Where Can We Apply Design Thinking?

Innovation Management

Innovation is not a concept that is well-established or understood. Innovation is viewed differently by different individuals. To some, it is R&D (research and development), to others, it is product development, and to others, it is a brand-new creation, like the light bulb that Edison discovered after examining 1,000 sample leaves.

No one, in my opinion, is unaware of the 3M Corporation. With more than 50,000 cutting-edge products and a 32 billion dollar annual revenue, 3M has emerged as one of the most significant businesses in the world today. As part of all of its product development and innovation processes, 3M considers design thinking as a core skill and a methodology for ongoing innovation, in keeping with its strategic posture. On the other hand, cutting-edge businesses like SAP, IBM, Samsung, or Apple, as well as organizations like AirBnb—which has a 38 billion dollar market value despite having no hotels—benefit from the advantages of Design Thinking in every stage of their product or service development.

Bringing Strategies to Life

The business world has worked hard over the past 20 years to comprehend the idea of strategy. It underwent training to help us think strategically and establish missions, visions, and targets by attending lengthy strategic planning workshops. Days were spent listening to presentations with much graphic detail. Ultimately, management levels made judgments on implementation after being persuaded that the strategy document should be the red book that should be at the top. Is that the outcome? Maybe the majority of people don't read strategy reports all the way through before placing them on their shelf next to encyclopedias.

Despite the fact that the commercial, academic, and consulting communities are still debating the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the strategies, studies reveal that the failure rate of formulated strategic plans has risen to a level of 70%-90%.

What was the primary goal of strategic planning, though? The shared objective was to outperform the competition, enhance our areas of weakness, accomplish strategic objectives, and ultimately be able to manage effectively. As it turned out, the managers became caught up in a significant performance management spiral after it became clear at the end of these investigations that the topic was also connected to culture.