Inventienda: How will people have a personal and conscious shopping experience in a traditional way in 2031? (EN)
- Problem owner: Solutions Group
- Process owners: design students from Joint Master Project at the Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft: Julie Kuiperi, Bob Verheij, Iris ten Brink, and Mercedes Leipoldt; and design coach: Ricardo Mejia from the ID Studiolab, TUDelft.
- Completion Date: 2016, The Netherlands and Colombia.
Challenge
Like any other business, Solutions Group, a medium-sized Colombian enterprise that design, produce, and install point-of-purchase advertising displays, at times need to re-invent itself, not only to survive in the market but also to drive society to the sustainable future. To address these needs, it could turn to applying so-called futures techniques, such as scenario thinking and technology road-mapping, which are commonly used by managers in corporations to create a company’s long-term innovation strategy. However, these techniques are too complicated, too resource-intensive, and too far-fetched. In view of this situation, I have developed DIVE: Design, Innovation, Vision, and Exploration, a design-led futures technique for SMEs. DIVE consolidates the learnings from our previous studies on concept cars, an established design practice used by large automakers to explore and communicate the future, which was adapted to fit the needs and limitations of SMEs in any industry.During the last quarter, a group of four design master students, part of the Joint Master Project at TUDelft, have applied DIVE to explore a preferable future of the shopping experience, which can inspire new ideas for Solutions Group. They have identified a domain, defined a vision statement, and created the vision concept ‘Inventienda 2031’. After that, they facilitated a workshop where they use the vision concept to spark a conversation with the company, and produce a roadmap for the future. At the end of the assignment, they also developed a concept product of an upcoming product, ‘TiendaTastes 2025’.
During a quarter, a group of four design master students, part of the Joint Master Project at TUDelft, have applied DIVE to explore a preferable future of the shopping experience, which can inspire new ideas for Solutions Group. They have identified a scope, the convenience store at neighborhoods, a domain, “a personal and conscious way of traditional shopping while making use of the existing technology in 2031”; and a design question: “how will people have a personal and conscious shopping experience in a traditional way in 2031?”
Purposes
Solutions Group then needs a new vision of a desirable future, genuinely informed by its values, that help it to get a better image of the future. A vision that:
- inspires ideas about the future of the business
- choose the strategic direction of the company
- understand how to implement new technology
Process
Following these scope, domain, and design question, they defined a vision statement for the different users: the shopper, the shop-owner, and the brand. Each vision statement is accompanied with a persona (see the figures in each case).
Shopper
Vision statement: “Solutions Group wants to help the shoppers to have a convenient, authentic and social shopping experience, while using the facilities of contemporary technology, and to be more informed about the products they purchase.”
Channel
Vision statement: “Solutions Group wants to facilitate the use of contemporary technology for the shop-owners to meet their customer’s needs while maintaining and improving their competitive advantages.”
Brand
Vision statement: “Solutions Group wants to help the brands with their environmental and social responsibility, next to creating exposure by using contemporary technologies in the convenience stores.”
If you want to have more insights about the vision statements, take a look at here.
- Activities: DIVE: setting a domain, defining a vision, creating the vision concept, and making the video. Moreover, designers have used the video to discuss the future with the company representatives
- Length: 14 weeks in the whole project
- Budget: they spent less than 200 Euros making the prototypes
Results
Vision concept ‘Inventienda 2031, the modern touch to a great shopping tradition’
Inventienda is a smart application/platform that helps the shopper and the shop-owner to communicate with each other to have a more modern and convenient shopping experience, but that remains personal. It also helps the shop-owner to be more organized in a digital way and allows the brands to give better information towards their customers. Doing research and case studies in their own country will help Solutions Group to gain valuable and strategic knowledge that can later be applied in South America and in the distant future be used globally. In the end, the convenience store at neighborhoods, represent an important amount of small neighborhood shops and convenience stores that can be found in any country. Having this unique market position will gain Solutions Group a strong competitive advantage compared to their competitors who are not entering this market (yet), and this will help the company to differentiate from the other point-of-purchase advertising displays companies.
If you want to have more insights about the vision concept, take a look at here.
To spark a conversation about the future of the company, the designers made this video about Inventienda:
Based on the recommendations captured during the conversation with the company representatives, the students developed the concept product of an upcoming product, ‘TiendaTastes 2025’. Here the video of the concept product:
If you want to have more insights about the concept product, take a look at here.