2. Thinking by Design This type of thinking has helped MassMutual, Design thinking puts the end a major U.S. insurer with $38 billion in user first and addresses their annual revenue. By collecting and analyzing environment and what they customer data, the company realized that need and want from a product any new life insurance product it created or service. For example, when was unlikely to appeal to the under 40 Lincoln redesigned its town car for the demographic. These consumers needed to Brazilian and Indian markets, it looked at the be educated about such a policy’s value to needs of luxury car users in a larger context. them. So, in 2014 MassMutual developed Both Brazil and India suffer from heavy traffic an education-focused buying experience and air pollution, so, Lincoln made the car based on what it called a ‘master’s program airtight. Because of endemic traffic delays, for adulthood.’ Instead of providing just business meetings are often held in cars, so, an online learning program, MassMutual Lincoln equipped them with tray tables and created a multi-channel experience 7 including state-of-the-art budgeting and other conveniences. financial tools, and a curriculum ranging Design thinking must be informed by rich from investing in a 401(k) retirement data sets about customers and their account to buying good value wine. The environments. These insights lead to ideas that service also offered offices with classrooms can be tested rapidly through prototypes— and libraries that customers could use. the foundation of agile development. The Because the program was so different from product concept can then be refined based what MassMutual typically offered, the on those tests plus customer feedback, and entire organization had to be redesigned only then brought to market. to support it—a hallmark of a successful digital transformation driven by the 8 customer experience. Businesses need to understand where customers want to engage with them, what needs customers want fulfilled and how they want to engage with the brand. 7 Harvard Business Review, Breakthrough Innovations in the 21st Century, March 9, 2018, accessed May 23, 2018, https://hbr.org/sponsored/2018/ 03/breakthrough-innovation-in-the-21st-century 8 Harvard Business Review, Design for Action, September 2015, accessed May 23, 2018, https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-for-action 5
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