The digitisation norm enables the customer to play a more participative role. The customer today plays a proactive role in co-innovating products with the company, and in defining the broader canvas. However, an application of the customer’s ideas requires an empathetic approach and that’s where design thinking comes in. The empathetic approach of Design thinking will help CIOs evolve from their traditional roles of problem solvers to creative solution providers, says Parthasarathy V S, Group CFO and Group CIO, Mahindra and Mahindra, in a conversation with Abhishek Raval.
How do you define ‘design thinking’?
Design Thinking to me is making the base level strong and integrated so that future planning is predicative and error free. I very often refer to the mantra of 3E – ‘Enable, Enhance, Engender’ and to engender is to ‘co-create’.
Design Thinking is a process of co-creating along with the customer. It is a unique problem solving experience that you bring to your customers, both external and internal, and in turn create value for them. It starts with identifying customers’ needs and entails providing a creative resolution of concerns and creating solutions, with the intent of giving an enhanced experience.
Design Thinking is critical for CIOs in the current environment of volatility and ambiguity. The technology is evolving rapidly and with it customers are also becoming tech-savvy. They increasingly demand applications and devices which are simple to use and delight them. Customers need everything on the run and need applications which offer mobility, converging the world of internet on their fingertips
What impact can Design Thinking have on processes or the approach of CIOs?
One major change that Design Thinking will bring about is a change in the mindset of CIO. The empathetic approach of Design thinking will help them evolve from their traditional roles of problem solvers to creative solution providers. They need to think critically and find creative solutions to problems while having a strategic mindset. This changed approach will shift them from accidently discovering value to systematically creating value.
It’s time to partner with businesses to make technology a part of their strategy and competitive advantage. We have moved from business process re-engineering to new business models; now it’s the business moment that every business has to think about and how a consortium of businesses will come together to create a life time experience for the customer and participate in every ‘business moment’ and grow the business exponentially.
Are you in the process of applying design thinking in the M&M group?
Yes, we have embarked on this unique journey which we are bringing to our internal and external customers. The idea is to attempt to scale Design Thinking across our workforce to help them collaborate better, focus on discovery & exploration to uncover customer needs that have not been articulated with relevance to emerging technologies, business models and emerging human behavior.
Which are the application areas?
We have recently launched ‘M2ALL.COM’ an eMarketPlace for all Mahindra products and services. This is a channel to reach our customers and supports our erstwhile, brick and mortar structure. Customers now actively shop online and with M2All.com, we are reaching them digitally and the focus here is on enhancing the consumer experience, what I call ‘experiential commerce’ and not just e-commerce.
At Finance and Accounts, we have a framework of House of Excellence, which is instrumental in making the function future ready. Some of the programmes undertaken under this initiative are preparing online dashboards which are used to present business information to the senior management. These dashboards take the information directly from the ERP without any manual intervention or spreadsheets.
The way M&M looks at Design Thinking… is it different from how the rest of the industry looks at it?
Based on the ‘M&M Rise philosophy’ our core purpose is to challenge conventional thinking and innovatively use all our resources to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world, to enable them to ‘Rise’. All our initiatives are aligned to the three brand pillars of ‘Accepting No Limits’, ‘Driving Positive Change’ and ‘Alternate Thinking’. We look at Design Thinking in a similar way to the rest of the industry, but aligned to our rise pillars. We use alternate thinking in everything we do to bring unique value to our customers.
Do you have a planned strategy to train employees on design thinking?
As a part of our talent management council, we have initiated a Mahindra Leadership University as well as Mahindra Technical Academy. Both have a focus on design thinking. We have conducted workshops with senior executives of the automotive sector covering major areas of Operations, Product development, Sales & Marketing, HR. IT etc. Sessions have also been conducted across the Finance & Accounts fraternity covering all the group companies. It’s been a process to bring together Business Thinking with Design Thinking to ultimately create value for our customers & stakeholders.