Digitisation and Design Thinking

What is the difference between digitisation and digital transformation? Digitalisation is about applying technology into the existing business. Digital transformation means doing things in a new, digital way. It leads to an entirely new market, as well as new customer and business realities. - www.netguru.com

While going through an article in Medium.com by Robosoft tech of March '19, listing the changes happening in society because of digitization and the challenges of Design Thinking (click here), the promise Design Tyhinking holds for the future in brilliant.

All digitisation interventions of late have resulted in development of society, improvement of productivity and better value realisation from products and processes. We see 

• product companies becoming service companies, like IBM.
• Product companies transitioning to product and service companies, eg. Mercedes and Audi besides selling products also hire their vehicles for longer duration
  
• Service cos becoming product companies, eg. Amazon selling Echo, Kindle e-reader etc
• Digitisation has increased the customer expectations from business, customers demand more features, comfort, safety, security etc
• By flattening the competitive landscape, Digitisation has made barriers of entry low, eg. Amazon.in also competes with Sapna and Higginbothams in India.. 
• Businesses face challenges not just from within the sector but also from across the sector, eg,  Hilton faces competition from not just Sheraton, but from Airbnb, Tesla faces challenge not from other EV manufacturers like Tata, but from the IT giant Apple.
• Any organisation interpreting the customer data finding hidden patterns, drawing insights are able to exploit the data more beneficially than organisations that do not carry out data analytics

are the changes happening in modern society.

How to carry out Design Thinking in the new digitized environments ?

As different from other designing processes, Design Thinking basically is 

• human centered 
• an iterative design process
• helps simplify the customer journey
• adds customer value across business and functions

To better exploit Design Thinking, organisations need to 

• avoid short-term thinking and concentrate on the bigger picture
• manage the different touch points to make it more customer responsive
• build a design culture in the organisation as Design Thinking is not just a product based activity, it is a process based activity too
• Iterate many times over - don't be set on perfection, iterate many times starting with a Minimum Viable Product or Process and then improving upon it based on the customer feedback and data
  

Design Thinking offers humanity better and better options and convenience. For example if we take banking, 

• the old banking needed customers to go to the bank and stand in queues to withdraw and deposit cash or carry other transactions etc.
  
• the Teller mechanism reduced the customer's difficulty 
• Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) simplified much of these transactions
• Internet banking got popular and was carried out through our desktop machines from office or home 
• Mobile banking now that enables banking on the move from anywhere.

The main focus in all these tectonic shifts have been on the customer with numerous iterations that have happened with technology playing the disruptive and value adding role. 

We have explained in the above writing how Design Thinking can be applied for digitization, ie localised digital experience sharing. But can Design Thinking also be applied for the wholesome Digital Transformation experience across  ecosystems ? Indeed it can be, but the experience and effort can be large, engaging and time consuming with potentially rich dividends to be reaped. Banks across the country are going through such a Design Thinking exercise of Digital Transformation of whole ecosystems.

George.