The bottom line is according to the bureau of labor statistics, you have a 50% chance of success from year 5. So with a little help we can easily boost that over 60-70%! Now that is definitely worth the risk.

23% of small businesses fail because they don’t have the right team. Well,…mostly that is because they can’t afford the right team. Sometimes it is because they don’t know what they need to improve. The 0.1% of businesses who are the household names that we all recognize have employees who cost in many cases much more than the small business owner is earning a year. That is possible because of their scale. I can help in many ways. The simplest would be to provide a new perspective during a one – three day workshop, depending on the topics you would like to cover.

How do you innovate. Standing on the cliff wondering if you should jump can be frightening to say the least. If you have never actively taken your business through an innovation program before, it can feel like a risk that is too big to take. However, if, like me, you have spent a lifetime running successful innovation interventions, not doing anything feels like the much bigger risk. At the very least starting an innovation program will force you to see yourself and your business from a new perspective. Methodologies like Design Thinking allow you to come up with new ideas, prototype them fast and cheaply, test them with your customers early on before making any significant investments and reduce your risks of failure early on. Regardless of whether you ultimately implement new ideas or not, you will walk away from the workshop with a new perspective of your customers and your business that will give you a better point of view to decide what to do next. The risk is actually minimal and affordable to every business.

Why do you need a Design Strategy? Should you become design led? Most corporations and brands treat design as a tactical service, like engineering, accounting, or human resources. At the top of each of those departments sits a leader on the management team of the corporation offering strategic input and advice. They contribute to the strategy of the corporation and form the link between the corporation’s strategic initiatives and the contributions there disciples can add to those initiatives.

This is not true for design at present.

Few companies have a Chief Design Officer.  However, ALL the best brands have one. Makes you wonder if there is a link, doesn’t it? There is and it is well documented that design contributes a lot to the value of a corporation when used strategically.

Do you have a design innovation funnel? Is design contributing what it should to the growth of your company’s value? Do you have processes in place to refresh and revitalize your creative design team? To grow their knowledge and develop their creative abilities? How about the user? What do you really know about them that you can take action on to create greater value for them?

How is design used in your company? Many corporations have found the advantages of using Design Thinking mindsets and tools to help them solve all manner of problems. There are literally thousands of articles and courses that explain the Design Thinking process steps and present it as a formula for success, but if you have ever tried to implement design thinking, you will know that it is simply not that easy. What skills, what type of people, how much, when, where, reporting to whom? How do you create a culture of user centeredness? How do you scale design thinking? How do you measure its effectiveness? These are all questions we can help you answer.

This area of consulting is a specialism for me. COVID19 has created a new problem for associations. How to keep and engage members when physical events are very challenging. The answer lies in a digital transformation. Associations do not make the best use of digital platforms to create opportunities to create meaningful value and engagement for members. I can help with that and have grown two membership associations more than 50% through digital transformations.