Research Article
Design Thinking: Case Studies and Implementation Methodology
1 Lotte Data Communication, 2 KAIST
Published: January 2021 · Vol. 25, No. 1 · pp. 79-104
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kbr.2021.25.1.79
Full Text
Abstract
Companies pursue innovations to meet the business challenges they encounter in a rapid changing environment. Many companies are searching for the ways on how to implement the innovation. Recently in the US and Europe, there has been a number of successful cases that utilize design thinking for innovation, which is emphasizing actual implementations. The design thinking used to solve the creative problems for designers while the design thinking has been applied in business field since 2000’s. This study analyzes three real cases which use design thinking to solve business problems and induced the implications from these cases. Based on the results from these cases, this study provides a three-stage methodology for implementing the design thinking for Korean companies. Three stages proposed in this study are the preparation stage for initiating design thinking, the applying stage where company uses design thinking for problem solving, and the proliferation stage where the design thinking dwells as corporate culture and proliferates the phenomenon outside the company. The contribution of this study is to provide managers of Korean companies with three real cases and implementation methodology which they can refer to when they are adopting design thinking for solving their business problems.
