Sustainable and Meaningful Business Models
Digitization, climate change, new forms of work and use patterns: Today, a profit-first orientation is rarely sufficient to develop sustainable business models. That’s why we bring together the methods of business design with other approaches. We design sustainable innovation in a co-creative process that helps position your organization for the future.
Iconstorm White Paper
Sustainable Business Design
Shape a future-ready business with Strategic Design
- Use proven Business Design methods to develop sustainable business models.
- Create Meaningful Innovation using the Strategic Design framework.
- Including an expert interview, a case study and our favorite practice tips.
Sustainable Business Design: Future-ready innovation by co-creation
Our approach to innovation
At Iconstorm, we look at innovation from a holistic perspective. Innovation should create value for people to change their lives for the better. In the past, many trend-setting innovations have shown that the behavioral changes they bring about must also be in harmony with our world and their context of use. After all, this is the only way they can hold their own on the market in the long term. For this reason, innovation at our company does not follow a “profit-first” philosophy, but a “value-first” philosophy that considers aspects of the entire product ecosystem and its life cycle.
This includes working with new methods such as the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas, looking at problems through the lenses of circular economy and systems thinking, as well as a design process that relies on co-creation and the involvement of many different people in finding solutions. There are two key opportunities in this approach: exploring complex problems can lead to amazing ideas and breakthrough innovation; and the open approach benefits everyone involved in the process.
We integrate Business Design with other areas of expertise
At the heart of every business model, there is a strong value proposition that improves the lives of a product’s users. Human-centered design methods help us find exactly those products that will be needed in the future.
In Systemic Design, Systems Thinking, a holistic approach of examining problems, is integrated with design methods. In this way, innovation projects can be embedded in a larger context and used to solve complex problems.
Brand identity and the company’s purpose provide inspiring starting points for business innovation. Their inclusion ensures that the brand essence remains recognizable and that users and employees identify with it.
Business Design: Methods and Impact
Successful Business Design Methods
A product idea needs the right business model. That’s why Business Design is an important part of our Strategic Design Framework. This means that we test prototypes with a fitting business model, either as a service or in co-creation with your team. In the process, organizational silos are broken down and the project unfolds a transformative effect that can advance your company. Thus, you ensure that your idea develops to the benefit of all parties involved, i.e. the customers, the company and its employees as well as third parties.
Suitable for developing and testing business ideas quickly and efficiently. The canvas creates an easy-to-understand basis on which different stakeholders can discuss a business model and its mechanics together without any special prior knowledge. Additional layers of the Canvas also enable the design of a socially or environmentally sustainable product throughout its lifecycle.
Strategic Design is focused on generating and testing meaningful ideas for innovation at the center of various systems (such as technology, the human context, the economy, the ecology). Developing appropriate business models is an important part of our design process and is brought together with product development. Business models are as much deliverables of our projects as the associated prototypes.
Business models not only structure the distribution of a product, but must also generate revenue first and foremost. The functional logic of most business models follows familiar patterns that have already been applied elsewhere. With our creativity techniques, you can identify exactly those patterns that are best suited for your plans. In this way, you will arrive at a brilliant idea in a structured way.
Convincing prototypes are more helpful than any presentation in quickly achieving insights in the innovation process. With this cost-efficient method, product ideas can be quickly tested and validated with users and communicated more easily within the company. Following the mottos show, don’t tell as well as quick and dirty, this is an important part of our Strategic Design Sprints.
Business Design with Iconstorm
-
Your contacts
You have ideas for a joint project? Questions about our work in business design? Get in touch with Michael.
Michael Geiss is a member of the management team at Iconstorm. He is an expert in strategic management and business design.
+49 (0) 69 15 32 018 22
