| | may 20148CIOReviewDesign Thinking with SAP--the Old-New Way to Solve Business ChallengesBy Rodolpho Cardenuto, President, Global Partner Operations, SAP AmericasIn today's world, design is vital for the success and growth of businesses. Back in May 2004, Business Week ran a cover story titled The Power of Design, featuring David Kelly's (Founder, IDEO) and Tim Brown's (CEO, IDEO) transformational belief in design by creating experiences, not just products. SAP founder Hasso Plattner read the article shortly before his keynote speech at SAPPHIRE NOW 2004, SAP's annual technology conference, and he was inspired to bring the magazine with him on stage. Design Thinking, he said, would be a transformational force for innovative software development. Design Thinking reminded Hasso of the early years of the company when he and his co-founders worked directly with customers to design the very best solutions to solve their problems. That is how SAP became one of the world's most successful software companies. But over time we became less personal, with more generic solutions. Over the past decade, design thinking has been fundamental in bringing SAP back to its customer-driven roots. Design Thinking Compliments Business ThinkingOur collective knowledge and talent has changed the customers' perception of SAP by presenting us not just as a software company, but as a strategic partner focusing on their growth. We truly understand who we are designing for. Design thinking enables us to improve business software design and also find solutions for our customers' biggest challenges. We collaborate with customers to frame problems and solve them by focusing on people, not just systems and processes. For example, one of the biggest distribution groups in the Middle East was facing diminished collaboration within the company. When we introduced its CIO to Design Thinking, we were able to target the right insights to help the company figure out their real needs.Another SAP customer, Discount Tire, a retail wheel and tire company in the U.S, sought to improve its customer experience online and in-stores. Our teams collaborated with them using Design Thinking to generate ideas around known problems and then further explored the unknown. Together, we uncovered how technology can improve safety and create satisfaction for customers, in particular SAP HANA, Hybris and Mobility. "The process of Design Thinking with its iterative nature and focus on empathy has made quite an impression on Discount Tire and our customer experience journey", Steve Fournier, Chief Customer Officer, Discount Tire.We often compare this software development process to a three-year-old child. Three year olds are always asking "WHY?" They go out and explore the world, touching everything with their hands until they figure out how it works. They make mistakes, try new ways of approaching certain objects, and eventually come up with conclusions from what they have learned throughout their investigations. Designing software should work the same way. By applying design thinking and identifying customers' needs in the early stages, we are able to build more usable products. Customers' needs are our priority. We finally understand what really drives their need for software, what they expect from it, and how they see their business development in the future. in my OpiniOn
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