“Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services and processes – and even strategy”- Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO (Innovation Design Engineering Organization)
The new normal necessitates a new way of learning, working and achieving results, and IGTC had to lead by example during this time. Inspired by the above quote, IGTC engaged with its senior faculty member Mr. M Hariharan to curate a special programme on Design Thinking for NürnbergMesse India, one of the 15 largest trade fair companies in the world with a portfolio of 120 national and international trade fairs and congresses at the Nürnbergberg location and worldwide. Faculty Hariharan, Director, Savoir faire Management Services Pvt. Ltd., is a certified expert in Design Thinking from MIT Sloan. He has conducted 700+ training programmes on Lean Management, Strategic Cost and Profitability Management, Theory of Constraints and Design Thinking.
Spread across 6 sessions of 2 hours each over a period of 3 weeks, the programme aimed to instill the design thinking approach and methodology for business excellence. It engaged with the audience to:
- Innovatively traverse through the unstructured PESTEL challenges keeping customer-focus as the central theme
- Broad base the innovation mindset and channelize the already present creative minds
- Create a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to look at the big picture, think holistically, ideate and implement customer-centric solutions
- Be vehemently empathetic on users and stakeholders and relentlessly search for solutions to human problems
- Bring in response-ability; the ability to respond to changing customer needs
- Nurture an environment to fail fast fail safe
The senior management team of 29 managers immersed themselves into the programme framework – Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation – to apply their learnings and emerge with 6 live projects relevant to their industry. The mapped the entire trade fair process from conceptualization, designing, marketing, organizing and benefitting from it. Their final presentations were based on the following topics:
- Virtual Event on Broadcasting Technology
- Existing Event on Cold-Chain, Industrial Refrigeration & Reefer Transportation
- Existing Event on Organic Products
- New Event on Hybrid Power and e-Battery
- Marketing strategies to promote virtual events
- Operations handbook for virtual events
Despite the various, existing challenges, the Design Thinking Training Programme was an extremely satisfying engagement that created an impact on all the participating managers and the organization. This is what some of them had to share:
“The design thinking course equipped us with greater understanding of the customer journey and enabled us to analyse their needs and concerns. It delved into its core reinforcement theory that ultimately it’s about our customers at the centrepiece in whatever we do at our workplaces. The course then put spotlight on implementing the design thinking approach to our ongoing exhibition planning and work process. It is much recommended course for everyone in business. The faculty was brilliant and our journey with the course in its every detail was truly insightful.”
Guru Prasath, Group Director, Member of Management Board, NürnbergMesse India Pvt. Ltd.
“The design thinking programme tickled our laxing common sense intuitions. We learnt to understand and ascertain needs of others, not to assume and form a perspective i.e. an immersion process. It made us learn a new concept of thinking and behavioural changes, which we need to adapt, practice and follow in our daily life rather than on a project basis.”
Satyendra Mehra, Group Director, Member of the Management Board, NürnbergMesse India Pvt. Ltd.
The design thinking training program was extremely engaging and invigorating, inspiring us to think beyond the realms of project management. The whole process from ideation to prototyping, helped us map the journey of the end user and identify points where our services and offerings could be better aligned and more catered.
Rucheeka Chhugani, Director, Corporate Affairs and Communications, NürnbergMesse India Pvt. Ltd.
