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Design Thinking

Create innovative customer-driven solutions and strategies

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Creative, Prioritized Solutions

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Customer-Driven Insights

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Rapid Ideation

The Challenge

Companies often struggle to anticipate and meet the needs of their customers.

Business and IT leaders often pursue entire development projects at once, outlining a strategy, defining requirements, and iterating on the development and design until their vision materializes in what seems to be the ideal solution. Everything feels right and the solution nears its launch date, but one question often remains. Is it really what the customer wants?

Now more than ever, customers expect solutions that are tailored to their needs and that integrate smoothly into their busy lives. They adopt solutions that offer relevant information paired with seamless experiences and intuitive interfaces. The functions and applications that fail to meet these demands bring little value to the customer and quickly become obsolete.

However, meeting these expectations requires more than reliable market research and strong design sensibilities. A truly customer-centric approach to solution design and development starts by challenging assumptions about customer behavior, engaging tenets of psychology to unpack customer decision-making processes, reframing common problems, and pinpointing opportunities for innovation.

Ultimately, achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage necessitates the development of more effective solutions through creative iteration and elevated speed-to-market. Companies that invest in understanding their customers deeply — while retaining a focus on agile development and delivery — are well-positioned to succeed in the customer-centric landscape of modern business.

CASE STUDY

Government

SEI assisted a large federal organization with resource and data consolidation among various internal systems. Within eight weeks, the SEI team designed a tool to connect customers with critical information, create transparency across processes, remain compliant with critical regulations, and utilize services efficiently.

Our Approach

Create innovative solutions for the customer, by the customer.

At SEI, we know that great experiences translate to better business outcomes. To ensure our clients’ custom solutions are designed with real customers in mind, our experienced strategists collaborate with client stakeholders every step of the way, from concept to delivery.

Every design thinking engagement begins with the collection of critical pain points and key project goals — whether they be related to technical functionality, practical applications, or anything else in between. After gaining greater insight into key challenges and objectives, we work in unison with teams to develop a more intimate understanding of their customers and develop solutions to reach them more effectively.

Providing end-to-end delivery leadership, our consultants drive the implementation of custom solutions that are uniquely suited to meet both customer needs and the organization’s critical business goals. Our small, agile teams offer on-site support and a collaborative, technology-agnostic approach, enabling us to help our clients create positive, valuable solutions for their customers.

Our scalable design thinking methodology follows a set of five essential steps that can be achieved during a hands-on workshop:

  1. Empathize — challenge assumptions by gaining a deep understanding of the customer, their pain points, and their needs within an ever-evolving environment
  2. Define — outline the problem statement and identify the current insights and capabilities within an organization
  3. Ideate — brainstorm and construct powerful, innovative ideas prioritized by their value to the customer and feasibility to execute
  4. Prototype — engage in an iterative, collaborative solution design process that allows organizations to visualize requirements, provide feedback, and gain consensus on functionality before investing in costly development
  5. Test — deploy solutions in a series of trial runs designed to refine usability and ensure the solution provides an optimal, seamless customer experience

CASE STUDY

Medical Device Company

A premier medical device company needed a solution to improve employee training for regulatory compliance. SEI consultants conducted numerous design thinking workshops geared toward understanding current-state practices and employee pain points. By addressing the root causes of their training challenges and incorporating employee feedback into the solution, SEI generated a strategic learning framework that increased organizational buy-in and drove adoption of new training practices.

The Results

Elevate products and experiences while engaging your customer base.

Great solutions drive great results when SEI’s design thinking methodology is applied. Harnessing data-driven, customer-centric design thinking methodologies, we help organizations challenge the status quo, empowering them to develop better products, processes, and experiences. We employ our deep project management expertise to ensure that every step of the problem-solving, ideation, prototyping, development, and deployment processes are guided by a customer-first philosophy. By doing so, we help companies deliver solutions that increase engagement, build loyalty, and drive customer satisfaction.

Our process positions every project for success, reducing rework by 60 percent and accelerating time to full delivery by 35 percent on average. That means organizations who partner with SEI benefit from reduced development costs and accelerated time to delivery, all while creating solutions that are designed for the customer, by the customer.

Whether it’s an enhanced e-commerce website for online shoppers, an operational process reimagined to drive manager efficiency, or the consolidation of internal applications for frontline employees, projects that leverage design thinking help organizations maintain their competitive edge, build brand loyalty, and achieve their long-term strategic goals.

CASE STUDY

Major Retailer

A global retail company wanted to streamline their customers’ online ordering experience to boost brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, and overall product sales. SEI leveraged design thinking, rapid prototyping, and competitor research to develop a highly intuitive platform that streamlined the checkout process, created seamless marketing and cross-selling opportunities, and reduced the overall time from login to checkout.