| | OCTOBER 20218IN FOCUSHow Design Thinking Can Help Entrepreneurs GrowBY CEO INSIGHTS TEAMIn the current era, starting a new venture or es-tablishing a business is not a big thing, As the competition is getting higher, and today's entre-preneurs are very well versed with the fact that they need more than just entrepreneurship & leadership skills to stay ahead in the game. For entrepreneurs, when it comes to increasing profits, it is tempting to concentrate on making new sales or pursuing bigger accounts. But it is more important to understand that paying attention to your existing customers, no mat-ter how small they are is the key essential to keep your business thriving. As an entrepreneur, it is crucial to understand the market and learn whether your product or service will be helpful to the customers or not. As someone who is starting a new business venture, you must con-sider the customer's needs and design your brand accordingly. Innovation is the driving force of entrepreneurship, and here comes the need to under-stand the significance of `De-sign Thinking'. Though this is a buzzword in the business world, many leaders are still not fully aware of how to utilize, in order to make the best results out of it. So, we de-cided to help them out with this article, which will focus on design thinking and how it can help entre-preneurs grow. Let's have a look.First of all, here is a short definition of design thinking - It is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alterna-tive strategies & solutions that might not be instant-ly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same time, design thinking provides a solu-tion-based approach to solving problems. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods. In common words redefining problems, understanding the challenges faced by users, and coming up with an innovative solution is known as the design thinking process. Some of the world's leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Sam-sung and GE, have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including D-School, Stan-ford, Harvard and MIT. Let us try to under-stand how design thinking can help you as an entrepreneur.Design thinking revolves around a deep in-terest in developing an understanding of the people for whom you're dealing with and designing the products or services. It helps in observing and developing empathy with the target user. It helps the en-trepreneurs in the process of questioning, such as question-ing the problem, assumptions, and implications. It is extreme-ly useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the problem in hu-man-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyp-ing & testing. It also involves ongoing experimenta-tion such as sketching, prototyping, testing, and try-ing out concepts & ideas.Phases in Design ThinkingDesign thinking process can be applied to many DESIGN THINKING REVOLVES AROUND A DEEP INTEREST IN DEVELOPING AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM YOU'RE DEALING WITH AND DESIGNING THE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
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