Strategy and key Issues of the Company

Question: Write a report to focus the different problems faced by Sciosity using design thinking tool, which is used by companies to achieve their desired goals. Answer: Introduction The main focus of this report is to highlight the different problems faced by Sciosity using design thinking tool, which is used by companies to achieve their desired goals. The report also highlights existing strategies and key issues of the company. The report also highlights how the new business model provides a solution to the new revised organizational challenge and the value proposition. The report also gives a clear idea of how the new business model is benefits the company. Design thinking is explained as a field that utilizes the sensibility and method of the designers to meet the demand of the people in a strategically viable and technologically feasible way. It is also considered as an innovative tool the helps the company in achieving competitive edge over its competitors in the present business scenario The Sciosity provides modernized solutions in work and learning environment to the secondary and tertiary companies, institutions, governments and training entities. Ryan Beckmand founded the company in January 2015 and he is the present CEO of the company. Ryan Beckmand has a wide knowledge in Virtual Reality (VR), which he acquired from his past entrepreneurial experiences. His main vision was to create an interactive platform for learning, which is simple and easy to interpret. According to Ryan the main challenge was that the demand and necessity for VR is declining, so he decided to shift from a VR company to a software company (information provided). Discussion Design thinking Design thinking is explained as a field that utilizes the sensibility and method of the designers to meet the demand of the people in a strategically viable and technologically feasible way. It is also considered as an innovative tool the helps the company in achieving competitive edge over its competitors in the present business scenario (Braun and Carolina 2015,Ds 78). It also provides strategies for the company to create value and market opportunity. Different definition and explanation of the term clearly highlights that it is human centered approach and help in solving various problems and creating innovative ideas. The primary outcome of this approach is revolution of business and innovation, which focuses mainly on customer needs and wants (Brown and Jocelyn 2015, 1-10). Process of design thinking The design thinking process does not necessarily starts with the issue, firstly it should be human centered and should focus on the needs and requirements of the customers. This particular process is carried out with the four basic questions and they are: What is? What wows? What if? And what works? As stated by Brown (2008), the design thinking is combination of three stages and they are: inspiration, ideation and implementation. In the first stage or the inspiration stage the design thinkers start identifying the organizational problems and try to solve it by focusing on the wants and needs of the customers. The second or the ideation stage involves brainstorming process, designing prototypes, focusing on the needs of the customer, making sketches and testing to obtain feedbacks from the planned ideas. The third or the implementation stage involves implementing the proposed solution and introducing it in the present market (Curedale and Robert, 2013) Tools of design thinking Stakeholder analysis is an important design thinking tool, which was derived from the famous theory of Freeman known as Stakeholder theory and it helps in giving a clear pictures of the players involved in the business environment (Chevalier and Jaques, 2016). Empathy map is another important design thinking tool, which is user-centric and its main focus is to understand the behavior of the customers. This approach necessitates placing ones self in the stakeholders position to understand the needs, feelings and concerns of the stakeholders and provide solutions (Carlgren and Maria 2016, 37-58) Overview of the stakeholder analysis The stakeholder analysis provides the company a clearer understanding of the issues and challenges faced by the individuals and how certain products are perceived by them. The outcomes of the stakeholder analysis also help in identifying commonalities within all the stakeholders. Long term relationship, concerns related to trust and expectation from a young and developing organization are some of the themes that are highlighted from the analysis. Whereas, among the investors, customers and suppliers cost, returns and profits are important themes. Moreover, with the rapid development in the technology and increasing competition, concern relating to the development of products and maintaining the reputation of the company is also increasing. Customers, institutions and regulatory bodies also showed their concern in the product value, issues related to ethics and effective educational settings (Bjgvinsson and Per-Anders 2012, 101-116). Fig 1: Business model canvas of Sciosity Source: (Business model generation, Wiley and Son 2012) The above figure highlights the present business model of Sciosity, which includes different segment and they are highlighted below (Osterwalder and Alan, 2015): Customer Segment: This segment includes different groups of organization or people who consume the goods and the services produced by the organization. Moreover, the primary aim of the company is to reach and serve this segment. Value proposition: This segment describes the products and services bundle that helps in creating value for a particular segment of customer. Customer Relationship: This explains the types of relationship an organization develop with particular segment of customer. Channels: This explains how the organization reaches its segment of customer and delivers a value proposition. Key activities: The most vital things that an organization must do to make its business model work. Key resources: The most important assets those are necessary to make a business model function and also the important resources that contribute to the value proposition. Revenue streams: This segment highlights the total cash an organization earns from its different segment of customers and also describes how? How Much? And in what proportion. Key partnership: This describes the entire network of partners and suppliers that make the business model function. Cost structure: This segment highlights the entire cost incurred by the organization. Reasons for change in the business model The reasons why there is a need for change in the present business model are listed below: Resource driven: What are the different resources along with the acquired ones, suggest changing other building blocks and new business model. Offer driven: What different value propositions would suggest changes in building blocks and new business model? Customer Driven: What different customers and markets, anywhere, would suggest changes in building blocks and new business model? Finance driven: Based on an analysis of the cost structure and revenue streams, what new streams, pricing structures or cost savings would suggest changes? Multi-epicentre-driven: Based on analysis of key partnership, value proposition and customer segments what innovations suggest changes? There also might be a change in the business model as result of changing industry and market forces and other trends. Other challenges faced by the company The brand of the company lack awareness, which is due to the weak marketing strategies and moreover Sciosity depends on its partner for selling its product. The long-term prospect of Sciosity was also questions as it is a young and developing company. Many were of the view that the company will be easily outperformed by its rivals. The company is highly reliable on customization of content. It is believed that content customization should be given secondary importance not primary importance. The company also lacks the required funding to survive in the business. The customers are ignorant and lack awareness about the need of VR. How the company can move to a software company from an analytic enterprise. Present and the new value proposition of the company Ryan provided the current value proposition of Sciosity, which is more resource-based as described in figure below. Based on the issues that are highlighted using the stakeholder analysis, few keywords are used to redefine the value proposition of Sciosity. The concerns pointed that Sciosity is young and a new company in VR market. It is viewed that the company does not have many tangible resources to look at hence questions the long-term existence of Sciosity along with minimal positive reception of VR in Australia compared to the United States. Therefore, in redefining a new value proposition, it was pertinent to place emphasis on its application, representing Sciosity as a company more than just a VR-based company (Osterwalder and Alan, 2015) Representing Sciosity as a dynamic team, display their capabilities to go beyond VR and expanding their reach to other industries affirms their scope to sustain for the long term in the technology market and support their clients with all technological needs (Osterwalder and Alan, 2015). Generating new business model The new business model can be generated using design thinking technique. Proper explanation of the design thinking techniques has been presented in the above discussion. There are several benefits of design thinking process, so the design thinking process is used to generate new business model. Design thinking is a brainstorming process that helps the organization in tackling big ideas in a simple and meaningful way. It can be defined as formal process that helps in creative and practical resolution of problems and helps in creating solutions (Hetland and Lois, 2015) Design thinking helps in combining critical and creative thinking, allowing proper organization of ideas and information. It also helps in making decision, improving situations and gaining knowledge. Whenever the organization applies design principles to the innovation and strategy then the success rate of the company for innovation improves. Different design-led companies, which include Coca-Cola, Apple, and PG etc, have really performed well in the past 10 years. Design thinking provides a new direction of thinking to the issues and question that an organization may face (Naiman 2016). Benefits of design thinking It focuses on the end user Design thinking is a special approach that helps in solving problems by placing the end user at the centre of the process. The primary goal of the process is to develop useful services and products that satisfy the needs of the customer. This process is human-centered and tries to meet the demand of the customers by getting close to them and understanding, what they need (Lepp 2014). It leverages collective expertise Design thinking helps in building multidisciplinary team and bringing many ideas and views to the table. Under this process all the employees breaks out of their respective fields to leverage their collective ideas (Naiman 2016). Employs empathy Empathy is the primary foundation of design thinking. Sometimes it is also referred to as understanding or discovery relying on the explanation. Empathy requires that the organization should identify and understand the need of the customers (Lepp 2014). Along with solving real problems it also creates value Design thinking is not just only about innovation and creativity, it is directed in such a manner that it helps in solving problems and creating value. Instead of following the traditional way, it makes use of design principles to solve different issues. Moreover it is useful in almost every industry (Naiman 2016). It keeps on performing test The design thinking provides the company with completely unexpected and new breakthrough, which is done by creating different prototypes and encourages quick feedback from the real users and customers prior to spending too much money and efforts on any idea. This process is a bit complicated compared to the traditional linear and analytical approach for solving problems, but the yielded result is much more powerful as compared to the traditional way (Lepp 2014). So the above discussion has clearly highlighted the benefits of the new business model and how it will benefit Sciosity. Benefits of new business model for the organization Competitive advantage: A new and a well designed business model can give an organization a competitive edge over its competitors in the industry. Developing unique business model will help the company in achieving a unique reputation in the market. Plan for growth: A proper and solid business model helps in providing a proper plan to the organization for growth. Financial sustainability: The greatest advantage of a solid and strong business plan is helps the organization to tackle the economic storm and the shifting market condition and it also makes great contribution to the sustainability of the organization. Investors and lenders: A new and solid business model helps an organization in giving a clearer view of the profitability to the investors and lenders. Conclusion This report has clearly highlighted the different problems faced by Sciosity using design thinking tool, which is used by companies to achieve their desired goals. 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