innovation problems case study

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Uber in 2024: From Industry Disruption to Creating Value For All Stakeholders

Dara Khosrowshahi became the CEO of Uber in August 2017, following internal turbulence and serious headwinds related to the company’s governance and reputation. Five short years later, Uber was clearly back on course, building on the success of its technology platform to reach 150 million monthly active platform users—and a market cap of $125 billion by the end of 2023.

This case study traces the remarkable transformation of Uber from its early innovation as a ride-hailing pioneer in a handful of cities, to the global expansion of Uber mobility services that required close attention to local operational and regulatory practices, to solving the complex technical challenges to drive Uber’s food delivery services forward. Interviews with Uber leadership reveals the strategic approach to work on the engineering, data science, product management, and product design challenges involved in building and maintaining a customer-friendly app and create an optimized user experience—and scale this on a global basis while factoring in local conditions and practices.

Key to this success was a culture reboot within Uber, and a renewed focus on collaboration and value creation for all stakeholders. The company that had found its initial footing by disrupting and transforming the taxi industry, more than a decade earlier, now faced a future where artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles would likely disrupt the mobility sector once again—but Uber was preparing intensively for what the future might bring.

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Innovating in existing markets: 3 lessons from LEGO

Beth Stackpole

Sep 21, 2021

With the invention of the interlocking plastic brick, a favorite toy of generations, LEGO was a poster child for business innovation — that is, until it wasn’t.

The Danish toymaker’s trajectory from industry trailblazer to the brink of bankruptcy to sustained recovery shows there’s more to innovation than sheer luck or a wholesale focus on disruption.

“No innovation lasts forever,” said David Robertson, a senior lecturer in operations management, in a recent webinar hosted by MIT Sloan Executive Education. “Sometimes you get hyper growth for a couple of years, sometimes you get steady growth for longer. But innovations run their course.”

From its inception in the 1930s to its brush with bankruptcy in 2003 and its subsequent turnaround, LEGO tried every approach in the book to managing innovation, some resulting in spectacular success and others in great failure, said Robertson, author of “ Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry .”

Based on years of research and what he’s seen at LEGO and other companies, Robertson advocates for an expansive approach to innovation — helping customers get more value from existing products by offering innovative complementary products, services, and business models.

“It’s how Apple turned itself around, it’s how GoPro got five years of 90% growth, it’s how Sherwin-Williams gets twice the price per gallon of paint than other paints that are functional equivalents,” explained Robertson, who also teaches an executive education course on the topic . “Marvel Comics turned itself around in the same way.”

Among the innovation lessons to be learned from those firms: Have a variety of tools in the toolbox and don’t be afraid to use them, listen deeply to your customers, and prepare for a steady diet of continuous reinvention to remain relevant, even as an iconic brand.

LEGO’s brick-by-brick approach

LEGO was a small family business that grew steadily until the management reins were handed off in the late 1970s to the grandson of the founder and newly minted MBA, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, who quickly unleashed a wave of innovation.

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With the younger Kristiansen at the helm, LEGO branched out into the Technic brand — a more sophisticated building system to attract older children — and launched the first mini figure and fantasy action play sets, fueling 15 years of growth during which the company doubled in size every five years.

Growth slowed in the 1990s for a number of reasons, including a rise in digital play experiences from companies such as Nintendo and Sony, the rise of Toys “R” Us and other big box stores, the expiration of LEGO’s brick patents, and the relocation of production of Mattel’s and Hasbro’s products to China, lowering the cost of their competitive toys.

LEGO responded in 1999 by refocusing its innovation efforts on revolutionary products that would reinvent the nature of play. “They became convinced that if all they offered was another box of bricks, they would become a commodity,” Robertson said. “They believed they needed to disrupt themselves before somebody else did.”

After a series of missteps that included the rollout of electronic toys for toddlers and a digitally connected action hero, LEGO found itself nearly bankrupt in 2003. In the rush to innovate, the firm lost sight of its core — physical construction-based play. After layoffs, emergency loans, and other measures aimed at staving off bankruptcy, LEGO turned those innovation miscues into a new strategy — one that precipitated a turnaround and laid the groundwork for further growth.

Among the key lessons that companies with a mature product line can follow to innovate:

Respect what made you great. Sometimes knowing where not to innovate is just as important as knowing where to innovate, Robertson said. LEGO learned that in a new digital landscape it was no longer enough to offer a box of plastic bricks — the brick had become a commodity. But the brick was still necessary, because that’s what customers expected of the brand.

Through trial and error and a number of failed digital-only initiatives, LEGO discovered customers wanted digital experiences that complemented core offerings, rather than replaced them.

Centering innovation around the brick-based construction experience through new stories, games, and experiences, exemplified by the fan-favorite Bionicle product line, is what drove customers back to the LEGO brand and returned the company to profitability.

“You try to understand who your customer is, what they care about — that’s the way we should think about innovation,” Robertson said. “You need to be dating your customer, not fighting your competitor.”

Maintain a customer-centric development process. When the big box stores took over from its ecosystem of small toy stores, LEGO lost an important channel for getting reliable customer feedback. LEGO began to evolve product development practices to support design thinking principles, empowering experts to come up with ideas for new products based on that critical customer input.

Today, LEGO regularly engages children in the process of character development, storytelling, and providing feedback on new playset ideas. “LEGO has a great expression for why they listen to kids when developing new toys,” said Robertson.  “Mads Nipper, the former head of marketing and product development, liked to say, ‘Kids will never lie to you about whether something’s fun or not.’”

Develop a family of complementary innovations to distinguish yourself from competitors. Innovation leaders need to lean on a range of different approaches for innovation, since tactics will vary depending on the scenario and business goals. It’s important to nurture a culture that’s able to shift gears if traditional methods don't deliver desired results.

“You need to learn how to play chords, not keys, on the innovation ‘piano,’” Robertson said. “Pursuing multiple, complementary innovations that harmonize to create something is much better than any one key alone.”

Ten Types of Innovation: 30 new case studies for 2019

If you’ve followed my work for a while, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of the Ten Types of Innovation, a framework developed by Doblin (now a part of Deloitte).

I previously listed it as the #2 innovation framework you should be using.

And with good reason. I have used it frequently with clients to get them to think beyond innovating their product , which becomes harder, more expensive and less differentiating over time.

However, what I have found in recent workshops is that since it was originally published in 2013, some of the case studies and examples in the book already come across as out of date. That’s how rapidly the world is changing.

So here, I present three new more recent case studies for each of the Ten Types of Innovation, along with an outline on what each of them represents. Try and see which of these examples you would also suggest touch on more than one of the Ten Types, and let me know in the comments below:

1) Profit Model: How you make money

Innovative profit models find a fresh way to convert a firm’s offerings and other sources of value into cash. Great ones reflect a deep understanding of what customers and users actually cherish and where new revenue or pricing opportunities might lie.

Innovative profit models often challenge an industry’s tired old assumptions about what to offer, what to charge, or how to collect revenues. This is a big part of their power: in most industries, the dominant profit model often goes unquestioned for decades.

Recent examples:

• Fortnite – Pay to customise: This Free-to-Play video game by Epic Game Studios is currently one of the most popular and profitable games in the world. Unlike other “freemium” games which incentivise people to spend money to speed up progression, Fortnite is completely free to progress and people only need pay if they want to unlock cosmetic items which don’t affect gameplay but act to personalise their characters.
• Deloitte – Value sharing: Professional Services firm Deloitte is the world’s largest Management Consulting firm and still growing. They noticed a desire from their clients for assurance that the advice they were being given and transformation projects which Deloitte was running would actually succeed. As a result, Deloitte has begun trialling projects where instead of their fee being based just on Time and Materials, they will also share in value delivery, where additional bonus payments are only activated if previously-agreed performance metrics are successfully met.
• Supreme – Limiting supply: While most companies want to get their products in to the hands of as many people as possible, Supreme has built a cult following through deliberately forcing scarcity of its products. The streetwear clothing retailer announces limited items which will only be available from a specific day when they “drop”, and once they are sold out, that’s it, unless you want to pay huge markups for a second-hand item on eBay. Their red box logo is now so collectible and desirable that the company is able to sell almost anything by putting the logo on it for a limited time only. Case in point: you can find official Supreme Bricks (yes, like the ones used to build houses) which are still selling on eBay for $500.

Supreme’s limited quantity releases often lead to people queuing overnight

2) Network: How you connect with others to create value

In today’s hyper-connected world, no company can or should do everything alone. Network innovations provide a way for firms to take advantage of other companies’ processes, technologies, offerings, channels, and brands—pretty much any and every component of a business.

These innovations mean a firm can capitalize on its own strengths while harnessing the capabilities and assets of others. Network innovations also help executives to share risk in developing new offers and ventures. These collaborations can be brief or enduring, and they can be formed between close allies or even staunch competitors.

Recent Examples:

• Ford & Volkswagen – Developing Self-driving cars: As two of the world’s largest car-makers, Ford and Volkswagen are competitors on the road. However, in 2019 they announced a partnership to work together to develop technology for self-driving cars and electric vehicles which would be used in both company’s fleets of the future. While Ford brings more advanced automated driving technology, Volkswagen was leading in electric vehicles. Through the combined venture called ARGO, both firms can spread their R&D spending across more cars, while both developing competing products.
• Microsoft – launching on competitors platforms: Since new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken over, he has changed the innovation ethos of the company. Whereas previously Microsoft was a product-first company who tried to eliminate competing products and customers should stay within the company’s ecosystem, Nadella has shifted the mindset to a service company where their products should be accessible to customers should be able to access the products in whichever way they prefer. As a result, products such as Office 365 are now available in any web browser, as well as on the mobile marketplaces of Google’s Android and Apple’s IOS, previously seen as competitors.
• Huawei – Leveraging celebrity endorsement: Until recently, “high-quality smartphone” made people think of companies like Apple (USA), Samsung and LG (South Korea). Brands from China were often seen as competing on price but suffering from lower build quality and a lack of innovation. So in order to raise their profile in Western markets, Huawei has invested heavily in celebrities to endorse their flagship phones, such as Scarlett Johanssen, Lionel Messi, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot. This initial investment raised brand name recognition, to the stage where it is now focusing marketing more towards features and functionality.

Huawei has paid Lionel Messi millions to endorse their brand

3) Structure: How you organize and align your talent and assets

Structure innovations are focused on organizing company assets—hard, human, or intangible—in unique ways that create value. They can include everything from superior talent management systems to ingenious configurations of heavy capital equipment.

An enterprise’s fixed costs and corporate functions can also be improved through Structure innovations, including departments such as Human Resources, R&D, and IT. Ideally, such innovations also help attract talent to the organization by creating supremely productive working environments or fostering a level of performance that competitors can’t match.

• Perpetual Guardian – Four-day working week: This small financial advisory firm in New Zealand trialed moving to a four-day working week, giving their staff an additional free day each week as long as they got their outputs done. As a result, they found people adjusted their working rhythm to achieve the same outcomes in 20% less time , while also resulting in more satisfied employees.
• Netflix – Unlimited Vacations: In order to drive their breakneck growth, Netflix reviewed their formal HR policies to see what processes were getting in the way of people doing their best work. They discovered that most bureaucratic processes which slowed down high performing individuals were in place to only handle situations where a low-performance individual would do something wrong. As a result, they scrapped most formal HR policies to free people to work in their own ways to benefit the company, summarised in their “Freedom and Responsibility” culture document, including allowing staff to take as many vacation days as they felt they needed to produce their best work.
• WeWork – Leveraging other companies’ hard assets: WeWork’s business model revolves around providing affordable office rentals for entrepreneurs and companies, fitting a lot of tenants into the same space by offering co-working areas. In order to rapidly deploy new working spaces and attract customers, WeWork started using a system called rental arbitrage, where they would rent commercial space, create a ready-to-use coworking setup, and then rent this space to customers. By not having to spend CAPEX on purchasing the buildings themselves, they were able to rapidly expand with lower overhead.

Netflix allows staff to take unlimited vacation days

4) Process: How you use signature or superior methods to do your work

Process innovations involve the activities and operations that produce an enterprise’s primary offerings. Innovating here requires a dramatic change from “business as usual” that enables the company to use unique capabilities, function efficiently, adapt quickly, and build market–leading margins.

Process innovations often form the core competency of an enterprise, and may include patented or proprietary approaches that yield advantage for years or even decades. Ideally, they are the “special sauce” you use that competitors simply can’t replicate.

• Tesla – Vertically integrated supply chain: Tesla’s electric cars require huge packs of EV batteries, made of thousands of lithium-ion cells. Until recently, the lack of demand for electric vehicles meant that companies had not invested in battery technology development, resulting in prices remaining high and making the cost of cars prohibitively more expensive than their gasoline counterparts. Tesla invested in a massive gigafactory to produce the newest battery packs themselves, and the economies of scale, as well as not paying markups to manufacturers, are estimated to save them 30% of the cost of the batteries.
• Amazon Web Services – opening internal technology to third parties: When Amazon Web Services initially launched in 2006 , it effectively launched the cloud computing market, allowing external companies to not just host webpages but run code and calculations at a fraction of the cost of building their own server network. Since then, Amazon has continued to develop new technology it would use for its own services, such as artificial intelligence, image recognition, machine learning, and natural-language processing, and later make this technology available to their customers.
• AliExpress – Making everyone a Shop Owner: AliExpress is one of the world’s largest eCommerce sites, and serves as a commercial storefront for thousands of Chinese companies, allowing you to purchase everything to phone cases to forklifts. However, AliExpress also allows the platform to handle purchases as listed on external storefronts using a system called drop-shipping, where anyone can set up their own store, sell someone else’s products (but to customers it looks like they are coming from the seller) and then have those manufacturers send the product directly to the customer.

Tesla’s Gigafactory is the world’s largest building

5) Product Performance: How you develop distinguishing features and functionality

Product Performance innovations address the value, features, and quality of a company’s offering. This type of innovation involves both entirely new products as well as updates and line extensions that add substantial value. Too often, people mistake Product Performance for the sum of innovation. It’s certainly important, but it’s always worth remembering that it is only one of the Ten Types of Innovation, and it’s often the easiest for competitors to copy.

Think about any product or feature war you’ve witnessed—whether torque and toughness in trucks, toothbrushes that are easier to hold and use, even with baby strollers. Too quickly, it all devolves into an expensive mad dash to parity. Product Performance innovations that deliver long-term competitive advantage are the exception rather than the rule.

• Gorilla Glass – Changing chemistry to improve smartphone durability: Gorilla Glass by Corning was listed as one of the original Ten Types by becoming scratch resistant. I have included it again for how it has changed the properties of its glass based on customer feedback each year. In 2016, version 5 of the glass was designed to resist shattering when dropped from 5+ feet, dubbed “selfie height” drops. However, after discussing what properties their customers wanted, by 2018 version 6 was no longer trying to resist shattering when dropped from a height once, instead the chemistry and manufacturing process had been changed to make it resistant to cracking after 15 drops from a lower height (1 meter, or a “fumble drop from your pocket”). I love this example of innovation as the product performance doesn’t just try to become “ better ” by resisting one drop from a higher height than last year, instead figuring out what really matters to customers and delivering that.
• Raspberry Pi – full PC for $35: The original Rasperbby Pi was developed by a UK charity to make a simple yet expandable computer which was affordable enough for everyone. Their credit-card sized PC may look bare-bones (it comes without a case and is effectively an exposed circuit board), yet it contains everything which someone needs to run a Linux operating system, learn to program and even connect it with external sensors and peripherals to make all manner of machines. The latest version 4 is now powerful enough to serve as a dedicated PC, all for a price so low you can give it to a child to tinker with without fear of it being broken.
• Lush Cosmetics – Removing what people don’t want anymore: As people become more aware of their impact on the environment, customers are demanding that customers do more to reduce the amount of plastic packaging their products use which could end up in landfill or the ocean. Lush Cosmetics was an early pioneer in bringing packaging-free cosmetics to scale, offering some of their packaging-free products like shampoo bars and soaps in dedicated packaging-free stores .

Giving children a cheap PC like the Raspberry Pi to learn and experiment on

6) Product System: How you create complementary products and services

Product System innovations are rooted in how individual products and services connect or bundle together to create a robust and scalable system. This is fostered through interoperability, modularity, integration, and other ways of creating valuable connections between otherwise distinct and disparate offerings. Product System innovations help you build ecosystems that captivate and delight customers and defend against competitors.

• Ryobi – One battery to rule them all: While handheld tools have had rechargeable batteries for decades now, Ryobi’s innovation was designing the modular One+ battery which could be used with over 80 different tools. Not only was this convenient for customers who needed fewer batteries overall for multiple uses, it also encouraged someone to buy into the Ryobi tool ecosystem once they had previously purchased one tool and battery set.
• Zapier – making APIs easy: Many web-based applications nowadays have an Application Programming Interface (API) which allows them to share data with other services. However, this often requires complex coding from the developers, and repeated effort to integrate with multiple different APIs. Zapier acts as a middleman for data, providing ready-made actions and API integrations between popular web services, allowing customers to automate certain activities every time a specific event happens.
• Airbnb – Expanding into experiences: Airbnb built their business on allowing everyday people to sell accommodation in their homes to strangers. Now the company has begun offering complementary services to people visiting new places through Experiences . These experiences are also sold by local guides, and allow guests to try things they would otherwise not have known about in addition to staying somewhere new.

Ryobi One+ battery powers multiple different tools

7) Service: How you support and amplify the value of your offerings

Service innovations ensure and enhance the utility, performance, and apparent value of an offering. They make a product easier to try, use, and enjoy; they reveal features and functionality customers might otherwise overlook, and they fix problems and smooth rough patches in the customer journey. Done well, they elevate even bland and average products into compelling experiences that customers come back for again and again.

• Kroger – Smartphone grocery scanning: US retail giant Kroger has been trialing a new smartphone app which allows shoppers to scan items as they shop, and then skip checking out altogether. Using the Scan, Bag, Go app, a customer will scan each item as they pick them up and place them into whatever bag they want, and once they are done, they can simply pay using the app and leave. This prevents shoppers having to wait in checkout lines and gives them an overview of their running total as they go, and also allows the supermarket to entice shoppers by sending coupons and offers directly to them.
• PurpleBricks – bringing real estate online: Estate Agents have a poor reputation for treating both sellers and buyers, especially for the amount they charge relative to the service they provide. PurpleBricks was one of the first online-only estate agents , where they could charge a significantly lower fee if the seller chose to complete some of the service processes themselves, such as showing the home to potential buyers. The firm can provide additional services for additional charges.
• Meituan Dianping – providing one app for all the services you want: As Fast Company’s 2019 Most Innovative company , Meituan Dianping provides a platform for Chinese consumers to purchase a variety of services. Known as a transactional super-app, you can use the app to book and pay for food delivery, travel, movie tickets and more from over 5 million Chinese small and large merchants.

Scan your own groceries with the Scan-Bag-Go app

8) Channel: How you deliver your offerings to customers and users

Channel innovations encompass all the ways that you connect your company’s offerings with your customers and users. While e-commerce has emerged as a dominant force in recent years, traditional channels such as physical stores are still important — particularly when it comes to creating immersive experiences.

Skilled innovators in this type often find multiple but complementary ways to bring their products and services to customers. Their goal is to ensure that users can buy what they want, when and how they want it, with minimal friction and cost and maximum delight.

• Dollar Shave Club – Direct to your door: Razor Blades have always been high-margin products, and Gillette was one of the original innovators by giving away the razor handle to make money on the subsequent razor blade sales. Dollar Shave Club has taken a different approach, by reducing the cost of each set of blades, but having people join a subscription service where blades are delivered to them automatically. While the margin on each set of blades is lower than retail, the subscription model has provided steady, predictable revenue for the company, to the extend that subscription boxes can now be found for almost any consumable product.
• Zipline – Blood Delivery for remote areas: In hospital settings, getting fresh blood can a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, many Sub-Sharan African countries don’t have road infrastructure suitable for quickly delivering blood between hospitals or storage locations. This is why Zipline has developed a simple, reliable drone network where hospitals in Rwanda and Ghana can order fresh blood from a central processing area and receive it within an average of 15 minutes, rather than the hours or days it would take using conventional transportation.
• 3D Printers – produce whatever you need at home: Instead of a single company, the industry of 3D printers is slowly beginning to change the way in which consumers get simple tools and parts. By downloading schematics from the internet (or designing their own), people owning a 3D printer now no longer to go to a retail location or order the parts they need. In commercial settings, this is also speeding up how quickly companies are able to prototype new ideas and designs, waiting hours rather than days or weeks.

zipline blood drone innovation

9) Brand: How you represent your offerings and business

Brand innovations help to ensure that customers and users recognize, remember, and prefer your offerings to those of competitors or substitutes. Great ones distill a “promise” that attracts buyers and conveys a distinct identity.

They are typically the result of carefully crafted strategies that are implemented across many touchpoints between your company and your customers, including communications, advertising, service interactions, channel environments, and employee and business partner conduct. Brand innovations can transform commodities into prized products, and confer meaning, intent, and value to your offerings and your enterprise.

• Gillette / Nike – being willing to lose customers who don’t align with purpose: I have combined both Gillette and Nike into this example of brand innovation since they have both recently aligned their brands to a purpose (social and political), which has been positively welcomed by some people but has resulted in hatred from other groups. Nike began by making former NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick the face and voice of one of their advertising campaigns. Kaepernick rose in prominence when he refused to stand during the national anthem before his games, his way of protesting the police brutality and inequality towards his African American community. This led to some people claiming he was disrespecting the American Flag, and therefore what the flag stands for. When his advert launched, a vocal minority took to social media to upload videos of themselves saying that Nike no longer aligned with their values, and they burned their shoes, vowing to never buy Nike again. Similarily, Gillette came out with a commercial urging all men to be “The best a man can be”, by pushing aside previously ‘masculine’ traits like bullying, chauvinism or fighting, and showing children how a modern man should behave. As soon as the ad was released online, many media outlets praised its message, but it brought the wrath of angry men who claimed that the razor manufacturer shouldn’t tell them what to think or how to behave, how they would never buy the products again, and how the world was becoming too politically correct, with women and minorities getting preferential treatment over white men. The advert quickly became one of the most disliked videos on Youtube, and even my commentary about the innovative message (seen in the video below) had the comments section covered by hate-filled messages. What both Nike and Gillette realised was that if they wanted to align with positive, progressive messages and values (which align with their target demographic of the future), then they would risk upsetting and alienating the proportion of their current customer base who didn’t share those views. In both cases, these were decisions that would have been signed off by all levels in the company, through marketing, sales, legal and the board, and the brands will be stronger in the future because of it.
• Burberry – modernising a classic brand: Burberry had built its luxury fashion reputation by aligning itself with the British Aristocracy, and its famous chequer patterned fabric was iconic. However, when trying to modernise and make the brand “sexy” in the early 2000s, a misstep happened when the luxury house began to license the chequered fabric, resulting in it becoming a status symbol and desired motif for a different social group: the British “Chavs” (rough, lower class and sometimes aggressive). This poisoned the once iconic brand in the eyes of their intended luxury clientele. In order to survive, the company and brand embraced innovation , by becoming one of the first fashion houses to redesign their website to be mobile-optimised, aligning their store layout to mirror the website, highlighting young British talent and livestreaming content and fashion shows. Most importantly, they moved away from the iconic chequer pattern in their fashion designs, where it is now limited to less than 10% of products.

10) Customer Engagement: How you foster compelling interactions

Customer Engagement innovations are all about understanding the deep-seated aspirations of customers and users, and using those insights to develop meaningful connections between them and your company.

Great Customer Engagement innovations provide broad avenues for exploration and help people find ways to make parts of their lives more memorable, fulfilling, delightful — even magical.

• REI – closing their stores on the busiest shopping day: Outdoor equipment retailer REI had begun closing its doors on Black Friday , traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year. They claim they are doing this to Eddie their customers to actually get outdoors and use their equipment, rather than queuing for discounted material goods.
• Peloton – bringing the gym into the home: Many people benefit from going to joint gym classes because the sense of a group working toward is goals together with a coach is more powerful than trying to exercise by yourself. Peloton makes exercise equipment with built-in screens, powered by a subscription to live and on-demand classes. It’s like being part of a workout group with the benefits of being at home.
• NBA – bringing the fans into the action: The NBA had invested heavily in innovation to make their sport more immersive. From live analytics and player statistics, new ways to watch like VR video, and official video game players for each team, they are finding new ways to bring basketball to the next generation, while making it even more exciting for existing fans.

Peloton brings exercise classes into the home

There we go, a new set of 30 examples of the Ten Types of Innovation.

If you found some of these examples interesting, please share the article.

Can you think of any more good examples? Let me know in the comments below.

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One-way door decisions or Two-way door decisions

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great examples! I now feel inspired to innovate in my entrepreneurial project. Thank you ?

Greetings from Mexico

Excellent work!

They’s very interesting. Do you have the solutions of some of recent examples?

My university has taken pretty much everything from here, poorly rephrased a few things and have delivered it to us, the student, as an entire weeks worth of content. Maybe i should be paying my fees here…

Bachelor of business student Australia

Very interesting. Which course was it being used for?

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50+ Design Thinking Case Study Examples

Design Thinking Case Studies demonstrate the value of the Design Thinking methodology. They show how this Design Thinking methodology helps creatively solve problems and improve the success rate of innovation and increase collaboration in corporations, education, social impact work and the public sector by focusing on the needs of humans.

There are many Design Thinking Case Study examples on the web, but few meet the criteria for a robust case study: a clear description of the methodology, steps undertaken, experimentation through rapid prototypes and testing with people and finally documented results from the process. In this section, we have been selective about the design thinking case study examples that we highlight. We look for Design Thinking Case Studies that demonstrate how a problem was tackled and wherever possible the results or effect that the project produced. Our goal in curating this section of Design Thinking Case Study examples is quality over quantity.

Browse this page to view all Design Thinking Case Study examples, or if you are looking for Design Thinking Case Studies in a specific industry or marketing vertical, then rather start with the Design Thinking Case Studies Index .

If you have an interesting application of Design Thinking that you have a case study for, we would be happy to publish it.

Submit your Design Thinking Case Study for publication here.

Design Thinking Case Study Index

Welcome to the Design Thinking Case Study Index. There are many Design Thinking Case Studies on the internet. Many are retrofitted descriptions of what occurred, rather than evidence of the Design Thinking process in action. In order to bring a higher standard to the practice of Design Thinking, we require stronger evidence and rigor. Only members can post and must provide strong evidence in the Design Thinking Case Study that the Design Thinking process was used to create the original idea for the product or service solution. The criteria that needs to be proved to make your project a Design Thinking Case Study are:

The Guardian: Benefits of Design Thinking

Design thinking helped The Guardian newspaper and publishing group change their funding model, boost revenue and adapt their culture and engage on an emotional level with their readers. In this case study, Alex Breuer, Executive Creative Director and Tara Herman, Executive Editor, Design explain how design thinking was able to achieve these goals for The Guardian.

Read more...

Tackling the Opioid Crisis at the Human and Systems Levels

How the Lummi Tribal clinic used design to address opioid overdoses

Applying Design Thinking Internally

Applying Design Thinking internally, within a group, community or to ourselves. This is a new application of the Design Thinking Methodology.

An internal application in this sense can have two meanings. First, the internal application of design thinking tactics within a group, organization or community, and second, the internal application of design thinking to one’s own self and life.

Can Design Thinking help you solve your own problems?

The Use of Design Thinking in MNCH Programs, Ghana

Responding to growing interest among designers, global health practitioners, and funders in understanding the potential benefits of applying design thinking methods and tools to solving complex social problems, the Innovations for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) Initiative (Innovations) developed and piloted innovative interventions to address common barriers to improving the effectiveness of basic MNCH health services in low-resource settings.

Société Générale's Time Tracking Nightmare Solved

In 2017, employees, managers, and partners of Société Générale Global Solution Centre agreed that invoices based on time tracking and project allocation were a chronic and painful challenge.

At SG-GSC, customers were billed for the time each assigned employee worked. The process of collecting the time worked by those employees (HCC) was a complicated and difficult ordeal. It consumed 21 days per month for senior employees. These employees had to navigate different systems, many types of contracts, high staff mobility, and a variety of processes between business lines.

How to Stimulate Innovation in Your Organization With Design Thinking

In this use case the cities of Aalborg and Rotterdam share their findings obtained from design thinking initiatives. This is based on empirical research as part of an evaluation. The use case is written for other professionals in the field of design in public organizations.

One of the main targets of the Interreg NSR project Like! is to create a digital innovative culture in which citizens are engaged, and more inclusive services are build. To reach this the municipalities started several initiatives with design thinking. In these initiatives one of the objectives was to find out how design thinking can help us to develop innovative and inclusive services. To research what design thinking contributed, we evaluated the pilots with participants.

The Impact of Design Thinking on Innovation: A Case Study at Scania IT

Organizational culture represents a crucial factor for the introduction of innovation throughout the organization via Design Thinking and agile way of working. Thus, the organization must establish a culture that encompasses a shared vision with values that create a commitment to learn, experiment and accept failure.

Oral B - Putting the User At the Center of Innovation

Oral B wanted to integrate digital technology into their electric toothbrush. The Brands first thoughts were to help users to track how well they were brushing their teeth. Future Facility, a product design firm in the UK suggested a different approach. Focus on the pain points of electric toothbrush users.

This case study discusses the importance of placing the user at the center of your innovation activities.

Design Thinking at Innogy

eCarSharing:   Energy Solutions for the New Generation

In 2015, Itai Ben-Jacob pitched his own ideas for a viable business model and developed the idea for innogy’s eCarSharing project in a design thinking workshop. His goal was to explore one of innogy’s innovation focus areas, ‘urban mobility.’

Together with fellow innovation hub members he organized a series of design thinking workshops to wade through the expansive topic of urban concepts – one of them focusing on mobility: “ We wanted to understand urban mobility – what does it actually entail? What type of business should we start? “

Building Cape Town’s Resilience Qualities Through Design Thinking.

This case study focuses on a Design Thinking Workshop for primary school learners. The aim of the workshops was to provide learners with a new set of skills which they can employ when problem solving for real world challenges.

Building resilience is essential for cities that face increasing uncertainty and new challenges that threaten the well-being of its citizens. This is especially important when looking at the diversity and complexity of potential shocks and stresses. 

Cape Town’s efforts to build skills in design thinking supports the creation of locally-relevant and innovative solutions that contribute to building resilient individuals and communities in Cape Town.

Designing Waste Out of the Food System

The average American  wastes  enough food each month to feed another person for 19 days. Through a number of projects with The Rockefeller Foundation and other organizations, IDEO designers from across the U.S. devised novel ways to tackle food waste.

B2B Design Thinking: Product Innovation when the User is a Network

When B2B companies talk about user experience, they are really considering the aggregated needs of multiple people and roles in a large ecosystem. But what happens when those objectives are vastly different for every individual?

“Humans don’t stop being humans just because they entered an office building.”

Self-Checkout: Improving Scan Accuracy Through Design

In this unique applied research study, academics and designers partnered with four of ECR’s Retailer members to immerse themselves in the self-checkout experience, understanding from the perspectives of the shopper and self-checkout supervisors, their journey from entry to exit, and their design challenges and frustrations.

Co-designing OTP Bank’s Strategic Plan for Growth

This is an example of accelerating a transformation through co-design. Eighty-two professionals gathered, representing OTP’s whole organization. Together, they were able to achieve months of work in just three days.

OTP Bank Romania (OTP) was at a key turning point in late 2018. The organization was undergoing changes in its leadership team. This new team helped them develop an ambitious goal:

OTP Bank will double its market share in 5 years.

They gathered for two Discovery sessions in December 2018. In these sessions, a carefully selected senior team chose three market segments to focus on. Then they built these segments into Personas.

IDEO: Journey to Mastery

While this is not a case study as such, it sits in our case study section as it is an important piece of information from a consultancy that played a large part in popularizing Design Thinking. In their Journey to Mastery section, IDEO discuss and shine a light on the shortcomings of the design thinking term and how it has been applied. I.e that it is not designing and that just knowing and using the practice does not in itself produce amazing solutions to problems.

It is worth a read to understand some of the nuance that is important to successful design thinking work.

Singapore Government: Building Service Platforms Around Moments in Life

In 2017, the product development team at Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) was tasked to develop a tool to consolidate citizen-facing services previously delivered by different government agencies onto a single platform. The initiative, Moments of Life, sought to make it easier for citizens to discover and access relevant services during important changes in their lives by reducing fragmentation and being more anticipatory in the delivery of those services.

Organizing the delivery of services around a citizen’s journey, rather than fitting their delivery to existing processes, required extensive interagency collaboration beyond functional silos.

Mayo Clinic: Design Thinking in Health Care – Case Study

In the early 2000s, Mayo Clinic physician Nicholas LaRusso asked himself a question: if we can test new drugs in clinical trials, can we in a similarly rigorous way test new kinds of doctor-patient interactions?  

Consequently, the Mayo Clinic set up a skunkworks outpatient lab called SPARC. Within 6 years it had grown to an enterprise wide department called the Center for Innovation a dedicated research and design-oriented institute that studies the processes of health care provision, from the initial phone call, to the clinic visit, to the diagnosis and treatment of the problem, to follow-up and preventive care.

Design Thinking and Participation in Switzerland: Lessons Learned from Three Government Case Studies

Olivier Glassey, Jean-Henry Morin, Patrick Genoud, Giorgio Pauletto

This paper examines how design thinking and serious game approaches can be used to support participation.

In these case studies the authors discovered the following results.

Perceived usefulness. Based on informal discussions and debriefing sessions following all workshops, it is clear that the vast majority of workshop participants explicitly stated that both the actual outcome of the workshop and the methods used would significantly contribute to enhancing their performance in their work. Some workshops have actually led to follow up workshops or concrete actions based on the outcome.

Asili: Addressing an Entire Ecosystem of Need in a Rural Community

Design Thinking in HR at Deutche Telekom

Reza Moussavian, a senior HR and IT executive at Deutsch Telekom explains the company's journey and how important Design Thinking is as a business strategy for HR. Reza Moussavian's presentation provides great examples of issues tackled in HR and the results achieved. The presenter claims that there is not a singe issue that Deutche Telekom tackles in HR now that does not start with a Design Thinking methodology.

"Design Thinking solves 5% of our problems." says Reza Moussavian, "What we found out was that the magic was really in the implementation phase. We had to learn how to keep the momentum, the spirit and the fire from the co-creation workshops alive through the long implementation phase. Success is really about technology, transformation and leadership skills."

Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges

This very informative article discusses design thinking as a process and mindset for collaboratively finding solutions for wicked problems in a variety of educational settings. Through a systematic literature review the article organizes case studies, reports, theoretical reflections, and other scholarly work to enhance our understanding of the purposes, contexts, benefits, limitations, affordances, constraints, effects and outcomes of design thinking in education.

Specifically, the review pursues four questions:

Design Thinking in the Classroom: What can we do about Bullying?

As children move from kindergarten, through middle school, and to high school, instruction shifts from stories to facts, from speculation to specifics, and imagination fades from focus. Design Thinking provides an alternative model to traditional ways of learning academic content by challenging students to find answers to complex, nuanced problems with multiple solutions and by fostering students’ ability to act as change agents.

Design Thinking is all about building creative confidence — a sense that “I can change the world.” In the Bullies & Bystanders Design Challenge, the students discovered that changing themselves might be even more important.

Following One School District's Approach to Innovation for the 21st Century

In her doctoral paper Loraine Rossi de Campos explores the use of Design Thinking in a school district for a 4-5 grade school.

India: Using ‘Design Thinking’ to Enhance Urban Redevelopment.

The discourse on urban planning and development has evolved over the last century with top-down methods of planning urban spaces giving way to bottom-up approaches that involve residents and other stakeholders in the design process. While the notion of participation and user involvement is considered critical to the design of appropriate and acceptable urban forms, there is no clear consensus in the literature on the methodology to be used to involve users and stakeholders in the design process. In this paper, we propose that the use of ‘Design-Thinking’ – a methodology for Human-Centred Design that is often used in product design and related industries – may be an effective methodology for engaging stakeholders in the urban design domain.

E*Trade: From Idea to Investment in 5 Minutes

Why the Financial Services Sector Should Embrace Design Thinking. Financial institutions need to evolve rapidly or risk disruption at the hands of nimble Fintech start-up companies.

In this article Kunal Vaed, The Street, describes how E*Trade used design thinking to enable the company to help investors get smarter by going from the idea of investing to an investment in 5 minutes.

E*Trade's Adaptive Portfolio service offering provides a good example of the work and results that E*Trade achieved with Design Thinking.

Fidelity Labs: Optimizing near-term savings goals

Thanks to providers like Fidelity, people can rely on easy, convenient systems to stay on track with their retirement savings. But when it comes to saving for important near-term goals (think: vacation, house, or wedding), people tend to be less organized. 

Fidelity Labs tackled this problem and defined the challenge as: "How might we improve the experience of saving for near-term goals? How might we make it easier, faster, and better?"

Design for Action: MassMutual and Intercorp Group

How to use design thinking to make great things actually happen by Tim Brown and Roger L. Martin. In this great HBR article, the authors look at design thinking in Finance with two case studies, one from MassMutual and the other from Intercorp. Group of Peru.

In this article highlighting the development of the acceptance of Design Thinking, they discuss how Design Thinking helps to create the artifact that creates the new solution as well as the intervention/s that brings the artifact to life.

How to Use Design Thinking to Make Great Things Actually Happen

Ever since it became clear that smart design led to the success of many products, companies have been employing it in other areas, from customer experiences, to strategy, to business ecosystems. But as design is used in increasingly complex contexts, a new hurdle has emerged: gaining acceptance (for the new solutions).

4 Design Thinking Case Studies in Healthcare: Nursing

The 4 case studies by Penn Nursing illustrate how nurses can be really powerful collaborators and generators of solutions within Healthcare. The videos describe the main attributes that nurses bring to the problem solving table

Philips: Improving the Patient Experience

Philips Ambient Experience service offers hospitals a way to radically improve the patient experience and results that they can achieve from their CT scanning suites. The best way to understand what it is is to watch this video  and this video  discussing the latest addition to the service. The white paper from Philips is also a good source of information on the Ambient Experience Service.

IBM: Design Thinking Adaptation and Adoption at Scale

How IBM made sense of ‘generic design thinking’ for tens of thousands of people. 

Generic design thinking often faces heavy resistance from influential skeptics, gets misunderstood or not understood at all, or less dire, it gets picked up with an unreflected euphoria and is applied as a “silver bullet” to all kinds of problems and projects (the famous “methodology misfit” we also see with Scrum for example). The big hangover often comes after the first experimentation budgets are expended and at worst a blame game starts.

Design Thinking in Public Engagement: Two Case Studies

Dave Robertson presents two case studies with the British Columbia Government (Canada). One with the Ministry of Transportation discussing their (public servant centered website), the other solving the problem of finding a solution to where to place a power substation.

Dave shows how he was stuck working in the public sector as a consultant and how creativity expressed through the Design Thinking methodology helped him to see a different, more effective way of creating solutions.

Bank of America Helps Customers Keep the Change

How do you encourage new customers to open bank accounts? In 2004, Bank of America used the Design Thinking methodology to look at the problem from a human centered perspective when they assigned design agency IDEO to boost their enrollment numbers: a problem that at the time, lacked any user perspective on why it was so hard for customers to save.

Redesigning The Employment Pass Application in Singapore

The Ministry of Manpower’s Work Pass Division (WPD) used design thinking as a tool to develop better ways to support foreigners who choose Singapore as a destination to live, work and set up businesses. The case reveals: Design thinking can potentially transform the perception and meaning of public service.

The team found out that the service redesign process required a better understanding of the decision points of both users and non-users. This involved taking a closer look at the opportunities and difficulties facing users, including those who had succeeded and failed within it, or had encountered problems or avoided it.

The US Tax Forms Simplification Project

This case concerns one of the earliest attempts by design thinkers at designing a large, complex system. It shows that design approaches in the public sector can look back at a long history. And it reveals how design thinking within the organization must include members of the whole organization in the design process.

Design has a long tradition and a rich history in the public sector. Nearly 40 years ago, when the US Congress passed the Paperwork Reduction Act into law, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) turned to designers in an effort to implement the new policy and to improve its relationship with taxpayers. 

A Tough Crowd: Using Design Thinking to Help Traditional German Butchers

Between 2004 and 2014, more than 4000 butcher shops were forced to shut down in Germany. When last was the butcher shop redesigned? The process started in the 1990s, as supermarkets became the favored spot for meat-shopping. As if a dramatic loss of market share was not enough, the industry as a whole started suffering from a serious image crisis. It was time to apply design Thinking to the traditional German Butcher Shop.

The initial problem statement read “Create the meat shop 2.0, an up-to-date version of the classic butcher business”. 

IDEO: Using Design Thinking to Create a Better Car

The challenge.

Remove roadblocks that can compromise the in-car experience for the Lincoln car company.

The final product, the Lincoln MKC luxury crossover, is credited with helping the Lincoln brand outpace growth in the luxury segment by more than two-to-one over competitors.

THE OUTCOME

A pop-up studio where IDEO designers helped departments communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Transforming Constructivist Learning into Action: Design Thinking in Education

In an ever changing society of the 21st century, there is a demand to equip students with meta competences going beyond cognitive knowledge. Education, therefore, needs a transition from transferring knowledge to developing individual potentials with the help of constructivist learning. A Scheer, C Noweski,  C Meinel , University of Potsdam, Germany.

Design Thinking is the most effective method of teaching constructivist learning.

Scaling Design Thinking in the Enterprise, a 5 Year Study

During Julie Baher's five years at  Citrix  between 2010 to 2015, she was fortunate to gain first-hand experience leading a transformation in product strategy to a customer-centered approach. It began when several senior executives attended the  design thinking boot camp  at Stanford’s d-school, returning with a new vision for the product development processes. Julie goes into detail about how they scaled up the customer centric methodology across the organizations 8,000 employees.

Developing Environmental Sustainability Strategies

Developing environmental sustainability strategies, the Double Diamond method of LCA and design thinking: a case study from aged care. Journal of Cleaner Production, 85, 67-82. Stephen J. Clune*, Simon Lockrey.

Developing an App for Type II Diabetes

Development and testing of a mobile application to support diabetes self-management for people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes: a design thinking case study. Numerous mobile applications have been developed to support diabetes-self-management. However, the majority of these applications lack a theoretical foundation and the involvement of people with diabetes during development. The aim of this study was to develop and test a mobile application (app) supporting diabetes self-management among people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes using design thinking. The article was written by Mira Petersen and Nana F. Hempler.

Improving UX in Public Transportation

In this case study the project leaders goal was to  improve the experience of bus users  on Madrid's EMT system by offering a technological solution to  increase the users’ satisfaction with regard to accessibility  during the bus trip as well as when waiting for the bus to arrive.

Transforming Life Insurance through Design Thinking

To some fintechs, non-insurance incumbents, and venture capitalists, the industry’s challenges suggest opportunity. The life insurance value chain is increasingly losing share to these players, who are chipping away at the profit pool. 

How might incumbent life insurers keep pace in today’s fast-moving competitive environment and meet customers’ changing needs?

Deploying the Design Thinking methodology in the insurance sector could be the key to helping save insurance from itself. Here's what McKinsey has to say about design thinking in insurance in their article "Transforming Life Insurance through Design Thinking".

"Better addressing the evolving needs of consumers can help incumbents win their loyalty—and protect against new competitors. 

Bringing Design Thinking to the Insurance World

Pancentric helped  Jelf kick-off a several-year digital transformation journey by getting to know not just their customers better, but their own staff, too. Jelf has dozens of offices around the UK, all with specialties in insuring different kinds of commercial businesses. For our project team trying to determine a roadmap of new developments, there was no easy overview of how each office operated or what the entire customer experience looked like.

The Features of Design Thinking in Fast Moving Consumer Goods Brand Development

This paper investigates what features of design thinking are employed in FMCG brand development via stakeholder interviews in three domains: agencies, companies, and retailers. This paper concludes with suggestions of how design thinking can be embraced in FMCG brand development.

A Chain of Innovation The Creation of Swiffer

This is a great case study that underlines the complexity of bringing game changing products to market. It helps to provide an understanding of just how much more is needed that a simple five step process of idea generation.

Read more from Continuum , the Design Firm responsible for the Swiffer

The Guardian: Using Design to Reaffirm Values

The Guardian's redesign, which launched in January 2018, illustrated the business impact when design is valued. The Guardian has a strong culture of design and increasingly, how design thinking can contribute to organizational change and development.

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10 Successful Design Thinking Case Study

Dive into the realm of Successful Design Thinking Case Studies to explore the power of this innovative problem-solving approach. Begin by understanding What is Design Thinking? and then embark on a journey through real-world success stories. Discover valuable lessons learned from these case studies and gain insights into how Design Thinking can transform your approach.

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Design Thinking has emerged as a powerful problem-solving approach that places empathy, creativity, and innovation at the forefront. However, if you are not aware of the power that this approach holds, a Design Thinking Case Study is often used to help people address the complex challenges of this approach with a human-centred perspective. It allows organisations to unlock new opportunities and drive meaningful change. Read this blog on Design Thinking Case Study to learn how it enhances organisation’s growth and gain valuable insights on creative problem-solving.

Table of Contents   

1) What is Design Thinking?

2) Design Thinking process   

3) Successful Design Thinking Case Studies

      a) Airbnb

      b) Apple

      c) Netflix

      d) UberEats

      e) IBM

       f) OralB’s electric toothbrush

      g) IDEO

      h) Tesla

       i) GE Healthcare

       j) Nike

3) Lessons learned from Design Thinking Case Studies

4) Conclusion    

What is Design Thinking ?

Before jumping on Design Thinking Case Study, let’s first understand what it is. Design Thinking is a methodology for problem-solving that prioritises the understanding and addressing of individuals' unique needs.

This human-centric approach is creative and iterative, aiming to find innovative solutions to complex challenges. At its core, Design Thinking fosters empathy, encourages collaboration, and embraces experimentation.

This process revolves around comprehending the world from the user's perspective, identifying problems through this lens, and then generating and refining solutions that cater to these specific needs. Design Thinking places great importance on creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, seeking to break away from conventional problem-solving methods.

It is not confined to the realm of design but can be applied to various domains, from business and technology to healthcare and education. By putting the user or customer at the centre of the problem-solving journey, Design Thinking helps create products, services, and experiences that are more effective, user-friendly, and aligned with the genuine needs of the people they serve.  

Design Thinking process

Design Thinking is a problem-solving and innovation framework that helps individuals and teams create user-centred solutions. This process consists of five key phases that are as follows:  

To initiate the Design Thinking process, the first step is to practice empathy. In order to create products and services that are appealing, it is essential to comprehend the users and their requirements. What are their anticipations regarding the product you are designing? What issues and difficulties are they encountering within this particular context?

During the empathise phase, you spend time observing and engaging with real users. This might involve conducting interviews and seeing how they interact with an existing product. You should pay attention to facial expressions and body language. During the empathise phase in the Design Thinking Process , it's crucial to set aside assumptions and gain first-hand insights to design with real users in mind. That's the essence of Design Thinking.

During the second stage of the Design Thinking process, the goal is to identify the user’s problem. To accomplish this, collect all your observations from the empathise phase and begin to connect the dots.

Ask yourself: What consistent patterns or themes did you notice? What recurring user needs or challenges were identified? After synthesising your findings, you must create a problem statement, also known as a Point Of View (POV) statement, which outlines the issue or challenge you aim to address. By the end of the define stage, you will be able to craft a clear problem statement that will guide you throughout the design process, forming the basis of your ideas and potential solutions.

After completing the first two stages of the Design Thinking process, which involve defining the target users and identifying the problem statement, it is now time to move on to the third stage - ideation. This stage is all about brainstorming and coming up with various ideas and solutions to solve the problem statement. Through ideation, the team can explore different perspectives and possibilities and select the best ideas to move forward with.

During the ideation phase, it is important to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas without fear of judgment. This phase is all about generating a large quantity of ideas, regardless of feasibility. This is done by encouraging the team to think outside the box and explore new angles. To maximise creativity, ideation sessions are often held in unconventional locations.

It’s time to transform the ideas from stage three into physical or digital prototypes. A prototype is a miniature model of a product or feature, which can be as simple as a paper model or as complex as an interactive digital representation.

During the Prototyping Stage , the primary objective is to transform your ideas into a tangible product that can be tested by actual users. This is crucial in maintaining a user-centric approach, as it enables you to obtain feedback before proceeding to develop the entire product. By doing so, you can ensure that the final design adequately addresses the user's problem and delivers an enjoyable user experience.

During the Design Thinking process, the fifth step involves testing your prototypes by exposing them to real users and evaluating their performance. Throughout this testing phase, you can observe how your target or prospective users engage with your prototype. Additionally, you can gather valuable feedback from your users about their experiences throughout the process.

Based on the feedback received during user testing, you can go back and make improvements to the design. It is important to remember that the Design Thinking process is iterative and non-linear. After the testing phase, it may be necessary to revisit the empathise stage or conduct additional ideation sessions before creating a successful prototype.

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Successful Design Thinking Case Studies  

Now that you have a foundational understanding of Design Thinking, let's explore how some of the world's most successful companies have leveraged this methodology to drive innovation and success:

Case Study 1: Airbnb  

Airbnb’s one of the popular Design Thinking Case Studies that you can aspire from. Airbnb disrupted the traditional hotel industry by applying Design Thinking principles to create a platform that connects travellers with unique accommodations worldwide. The founders of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, started by identifying a problem: the cost and lack of personalisation in traditional lodging.

They conducted in-depth user research by staying in their own listings and collecting feedback from both hosts and guests. This empathetic approach allowed them to design a platform that not only met the needs of travellers but also empowered hosts to provide personalised experiences. 

Airbnb's intuitive website and mobile app interface, along with its robust review and rating system, instil trust and transparency, making users feel comfortable choosing from a vast array of properties. Furthermore, the "Experiences" feature reflects Airbnb's commitment to immersive travel, allowing users to book unique activities hosted by locals. 

Case Study 2.  Apple    

Apple Inc. has consistently been a pioneer in  Design Thinking, which is evident in its products, such as the iPhone. One of the best Design Thinking Examples from Apple is the development of the iPhone's User Interface (UI). The team at Apple identified the need for a more intuitive and user-friendly smartphone experience. They conducted extensive research and usability testing to understand user behaviours, pain points, and desires.   

The result? A revolutionary touch interface that forever changed the smartphone industry. Apple's relentless focus on the user experience, combined with iterative prototyping and user feedback, exemplifies the power of  Design Thinking in creating groundbreaking products.    

Apple invests heavily in user research to  anticipate what customers want before they even realise it themselves. This empathetic approach to design has led to groundbreaking innovations like the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, which have redefined the entire industry.  

Case Study 3. Netflix  

Netflix, the global streaming giant, has revolutionised the way people consume entertainment content. A major part of their success can be attributed to their effective use of Design Thinking principles.

What sets Netflix apart is its commitment to understanding its audience on a profound level. Netflix recognised that its success hinged on offering a personalised, enjoyable viewing experience. Through meticulous user research, data analysis, and a culture of innovation, Netflix constantly evolves its platform. Moreover, by gathering insights on viewing habits, content preferences, and even UI, the company tailors its recommendations, search algorithms, and original content to captivate viewers worldwide.

Furthermore, Netflix's iterative approach to Design Thinking allows it to adapt quickly to shifting market dynamics. This agility proved crucial when transitioning from a DVD rental service to a streaming platform. Netflix didn't just lead this revolution; it shaped it by keeping users' desires and behaviours front and centre. Netflix's commitment to Design Thinking has resulted in a highly user-centric platform that keeps subscribers engaged and satisfied, ultimately contributing to its global success.  

Case Study 4. Uber Eats     

Uber Eats, a subsidiary of Uber, has disrupted the food delivery industry by applying Design Thinking principles to enhance user experiences and create a seamless platform for food lovers and restaurants alike.  

One of  UberEats' key innovations lies in its user-centric approach. By conducting in-depth research and understanding the pain points of both consumers and restaurant partners, they crafted a solution that addresses real-world challenges. The user-friendly app offers a wide variety of cuisines, personalised recommendations, and real-time tracking, catering to the diverse preferences of customers.  

Moreover,  UberEats leverages technology and data-driven insights to optimise delivery routes and times, ensuring that hot and fresh food reaches customers promptly. The platform also empowers restaurant owners with tools to efficiently manage orders, track performance, and expand their customer base. 

Case Study  5 . IBM    

IBM is a prime example of a large corporation successfully adopting Design Thinking to drive innovation and transform its business. Historically known for its hardware and software innovations, IBM recognised the need to evolve its approach to remain competitive in the fast-paced technology landscape.   

IBM's Design Thinking journey began with a mission to reinvent its enterprise software solutions. The company transitioned from a product-centric focus to a user-centric one. Instead of solely relying on technical specifications, IBM started by empathising with its customers. They started to understand customer’s pain points, and envisioning solutions that genuinely addressed their needs. 

One of the key elements of IBM's Design Thinking success is its multidisciplinary teams. The company brought together designers, engineers, marketers, and end-users to collaborate throughout the product development cycle. This cross-functional approach encouraged diverse perspectives, fostering creativity and innovation. 

IBM's commitment to Design Thinking is evident in its flagship projects such as Watson, a cognitive computing system, and IBM Design Studios, where Design Thinking principles are deeply embedded into the company's culture. 

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Case Study 6. Oral-B’s electric toothbrush

Oral-B, a prominent brand under the Procter & Gamble umbrella, stands out as a remarkable example of how Design Thinking can be executed in a seemingly everyday product—Electric toothbrushes. By applying the Design Thinking approach, Oral-B has transformed the world of oral hygiene with its electric toothbrushes.  

Oral-B's journey with Design Thinking began by placing the user firmly at the centre of their Product Development process. Through extensive research and user feedback, the company gained invaluable insights into oral care habits, preferences, and pain points. This user-centric approach guided Oral-B in designing electric toothbrushes that not only cleaned teeth more effectively but also made the entire oral care routine more engaging and enjoyable.  

Another of Oral-B's crucial innovations is the integration of innovative technology into their toothbrushes. These devices now come equipped with features like real-time feedback, brushing timers, and even Bluetooth connectivity to sync with mobile apps. By embracing technology and user-centric design, Oral-B effectively transformed the act of brushing teeth into an interactive and informative experience. This has helped users maintain better oral hygiene.  

Oral-B's success story showcases how Design Thinking, combined with a deep understanding of user needs, can lead to significant advancements, ultimately improving both the product and user satisfaction.

Case Study 7. IDEO  

IDEO, a Global Design Consultancy, has been at the forefront of Design Thinking for decades. They have worked on diverse projects, from creating innovative medical devices to redesigning public services.

One of their most notable Design Thinking examples is the development of the "DeepDive" shopping cart for a major retailer. IDEO's team spent weeks observing shoppers, talking to store employees, and prototyping various cart designs. The result was a cart that not only improved the shopping experience but also increased sales. IDEO's human-centred approach, emphasis on empathy, and rapid prototyping techniques demonstrate how Design Thinking can drive innovation and solve real-world problems.   

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Case Study  8 .  Tesla  

Tesla, led by Elon Musk, has redefined the automotive industry by applying Design Thinking to Electric Vehicles (EVs). Musk and his team identified the need for EVs to be not just eco-friendly but also desirable. They focused on designing EVs that are stylish, high-performing, and technologically advanced. Tesla's iterative approach, rapid prototyping, and constant refinement have resulted in groundbreaking EVs like the Model S, Model 3, and Model X.    

From the minimalist interior of their Model S to the autopilot self-driving system, every aspect is meticulously crafted with the end user in mind. The company actively seeks feedback from its user community, often implementing software updates based on customer suggestions. This iterative approach ensures that Tesla vehicles continually evolve to meet and exceed customer expectations .   

Moreover, Tesla's bold vision extends to sustainable energy solutions, exemplified by products like the Powerwall and solar roof tiles. These innovations  showcase Tesla's holistic approach to Design Thinking, addressing not only the automotive industry's challenges but also contributing to a greener, more sustainable future.   

Case Study 9. GE Healthcare 

GE Healthcare is a prominent player in the Healthcare industry, renowned for its relentless commitment to innovation and design excellence. Leveraging Design Thinking principles, GE Healthcare has consistently pushed the boundaries of medical technology, making a significant impact on patient care worldwide.  

One of the key areas where GE Healthcare has excelled is in the development of cutting-edge medical devices and diagnostic solutions. Their dedication to user-centred design has resulted in devices that are not only highly functional but also incredibly intuitive for healthcare professionals to operate. For example, their advanced Medical Imaging equipment, such as MRI and CT scanners, are designed with a focus on patient comfort, safety, and accurate diagnostics. This device reflects the company's dedication to improving healthcare outcomes.  

Moreover, GE Healthcare's commitment to design extends beyond the physical product. They have also ventured into software solutions that facilitate data analysis and Patient Management. Their user-friendly software interfaces and data visualisation tools have empowered healthcare providers to make more informed decisions, enhancing overall patient care and treatment planning.

Case Study 10. Nike 

Nike is a global powerhouse in the athletic apparel and Footwear industry. Nike's journey began with a simple running shoe, but its design-thinking approach transformed it into an iconic brand.

Nike's Design Thinking journey started with a deep understanding of athletes' needs and desires. They engaged in extensive user research, often collaborating with top athletes to gain insights that inform their product innovations. This customer-centric approach allowed Nike to develop ground breaking technologies, such as Nike Air and Flyknit, setting new standards in comfort, performance, and style.

Beyond product innovation, Nike's brand identity itself is a testament to Design Thinking. The iconic Swoosh logo, created by Graphic Designer Carolyn Davidson, epitomises simplicity and timelessness, reflecting the brand's ethos.  

Nike also excels in creating immersive retail experiences, using Design Thinking to craft spaces that engage and inspire customers. Their flagship stores around the world are showcases of innovative design, enhancing the overall brand perception.

Lessons learned from Design Thinking Case Studies

The Design Thinking process, as exemplified by the success stories of IBM, Netflix, Apple, and Nike, offers valuable takeaways for businesses of all sizes and industries. Here are three key lessons to learn from these Case Studies:  

1)   Consider the b ig p icture   

Design Thinking encourages organisations to zoom out and view the big picture. It's not just about solving a specific problem but understanding how that problem fits into the broader context of user needs and market dynamics. By taking a holistic approach, you can identify opportunities for innovation that extend beyond immediate challenges. IBM's example, for instance, involved a comprehensive evaluation of their clients' journeys, leading to more impactful solutions.  

2)  Think t hrough a lternative s olutions   

One of the basic principles of Design Thinking is ideation, which emphasises generating a wide range of creative solutions. Netflix's success in content recommendation, for instance, came from exploring multiple strategies to enhance user experience. When brainstorming ideas and solutions, don't limit yourself to the obvious choices. Encourage diverse perspectives and consider unconventional approaches that may lead to breakthrough innovations.  

3)  Research e ach c ompany’s c ompetitors   

Lastly, researching competitors is essential for staying competitive. Analyse what other companies in your industry are doing, both inside and outside the realm of Design Thinking. Learn from their successes and failures. GE Healthcare, for example, leveraged Design Thinking to improve medical equipment usability, giving them a competitive edge. By researching competitors, you can gain insights that inform your own Design Thinking initiatives and help you stand out in the market.  

Incorporating these takeaways into your approach to Design Thinking can enhance your problem-solving capabilities, foster innovation, and ultimately lead to more successful results.  

Conclusion    

Design Thinking is not limited to a specific industry or problem domain; it is a versatile approach that promotes innovation and problem-solving in various contexts. In this blog, we've examined successful Design Thinking Case Studies from industry giants like IBM, Netflix, Apple, Airbnb, Uber Eats, and Nike. These companies have demonstrated that Design Thinking is a powerful methodology that can drive innovation, enhance user experiences, and lead to exceptional business success.   

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Frequently Asked Questions

Design Thinking Case Studies align with current market demands and user expectations by showcasing practical applications of user-centric problem-solving. These Studies highlight the success of empathetic approaches in meeting evolving customer needs.

By analysing various real-world examples, businesses can derive vital insights into dynamic market trends, creating innovative solutions, and enhancing user experiences. Design Thinking's emphasis on iterative prototyping and collaboration resonates with the contemporary demand for agility and adaptability.

Real-world examples of successful Design Thinking implementations can be found in various sources. For instance, you can explore several Case Study repositories on Design Thinking platforms like IDEO and Design Thinking Institute. Furthermore, you can also look for business publications, such as the Harvard Business Review as well as Fast Company, which often feature articles on successful Design Thinking applications.

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Tesla Motors: A case study in disruptive innovation

Senior Director, Cost Benchmarking Services, IHS Markit

Associate Director, AutoIntelligence, S&P Global Mobility

Tesla Motors broke the mold. Then reinvented it. Not only did Tesla Chief Executive and Chief Product Architect Elon Musk demonstrate that convention could be defied, he did it in an industry with 100-year-old traditions, norms, and processes. Of course, the auto industry has innovated in the past, but Tesla, which was founded in 2003, has pushed the envelope beyond what most automakers thought possible. The company's Silicon Valley-style "techpreneurship" enabled it to move faster, work more efficiently, and create groundbreaking new ideas around sustainable mobility and automotive technology.

After all, this is Musk's modus operandi. In 1998, he disrupted e-commerce by creating a widely deployable and secure payment platform called PayPal. And in 2002, he launched SpaceX, a company that designs, manufactures, and launches rockets and spacecraft. The company's goal is to enable people to live on other planets. Musk, himself, wants to "die on Mars" and wholeheartedly believes it will be possible.

He is also a lightning rod in the debate around mass transit with an idea some critics refer to as vaporware. Dubbed Hyperloop, Musk's idea is to create a high-speed transportation system that is immune to weather, impossible to crash, uses little energy and recaptures most of what it uses, and travels twice the speed of today's commercial aircraft. He believes the concept could move people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 35 minutes. Oddly, he has no interest in making the Hyperloop a reality but, rather, is putting his ideas out there for others to take and improve the human experience.

With Tesla, Musk is focused on disrupting mobility. As of mid-June 2014, the company has released all of its patent holdings, claiming that open-source innovation is more powerful than anything one company could do individually. While IP lawyers cringed, Wall Street applauded, sending Tesla's stock price up 14% to $231 a share. This radical approach to innovation runs deep, as evidenced in the technology and design approach of the company's flagship Model S, its $69,900 luxury car.

In August 2014, the IHS Technology Teardown Team purchased a used 2013 Model S and took it apart to see what made it tick. The team dismantled 12 systems and cataloged every part within each system. The teardown included both the electronics systems inside the car's interior and the drivetrain (see sidebar "What's inside the Model S?").

Technical differences

The teardown confirmed that the Tesla Model S is unlike anything else on the road. A massive plot of real estate in the center stack is dedicated to a 17-inch touch screen infotainment system, which became—since its production launch in 2011—an instant industry benchmark for automotive display integration. There is room left for only two physical buttons on the console—one for the hazard lights and one for the glove compartment release (see sidebar below).

The technical specifications are impressive. The 17-inch screen is a Chi Mei Optoelectronics display with 1920 x 1200 WVGA resolution that includes a projected capacitive touch screen—the same technology employed in many smartphones and tablets. The system runs on a Linux-based operating system, offers Garmin navigation with Google Earth overlays, and computes at speeds still besting most other systems available today with its NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor combined with 2 GB of DDR3 SDRAM.

The system includes an embedded 3G modem from Sierra Wireless that runs broadband data off AT&T's network. It can receive software updates over the air and controls all of the functions of infotainment, audio, navigation, Bluetooth phone, HVAC, and even vehicle settings like windows, door locks, sunroof, trunk release, traction control, headlights, steering, and suspension settings.

In addition, a 12.3-inch fully digital instrument cluster sits directly in front of the driver with its own NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, which it uses to handle the diverse array of graphics, content, and redundant outputs for the driver. About the only "familiar" driver components are the steering wheel, pedals, and transmission shifter—the latter actually borrowed from the Mercedes-Benz parts bin.

Manufacturing differences

The system is clearly in a class of its own. However, with all of these high-end specifications, how can Tesla sell this as a standard feature in every Model S? More disruption.

The company chose to change up the supply chain and borrow from the electronic manufacturing services (EMS) model of production that is standard practice in the consumer electronics industry. In this respect, Tesla is closer to being a technology company than a traditional automobile maker. Much like how Apple designs the iPhone and then employs Foxconn to build it, Tesla contracted with a leading EMS provider to build its center infotainment system, instrument cluster, and several other systems in the Model S. This model required Tesla to internalize much of the hardware and software development, as well as the systems integration work. Given that Tesla has hired its engineers from all over Silicon Valley and beyond, this was not a problem.

The Silicon Valley culture and the EMS approach to manufacturing were a clear advantage for Tesla at one time but no longer make it unique. The EMS model is expanding in the automotive industry, and the likes of Compal, Flextronics, Foxconn, and Jabil are working with brands including Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors (GM), Jaguar, and Volkswagen.

However, the transition to the EMS model can be problematic. Ford outsourced the entire infotainment architecture for the development and deployment of MyFord Touch in 2011 to an EMS provider. The initial system had technical software problems that required Ford to issue several software upgrades. This cost tens of millions of dollars, contributed to a poor customer experience, and caused perception problems for Ford, from which the company has only recently recovered.

Development differences

In the last decade, virtually every automaker has relocated portions of vehicle and vehicle technology development to new R&D facilities in the San Francisco-to-San Jose tech corridor. In fact, some early innovators predate Tesla: BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen set up shop in the Valley in the mid-1990s, and Honda opened its first office in 2003, the same year Tesla was founded.

The reasons for doing so now go beyond manufacturing. Automotive OEMs are co-locating with the likes of Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, HP, Intel, NVIDIA, and Oracle to help speed the pace of innovation. This involves accelerating the pace of hardware, software, services, and applications development but also rethinking the process of design.

The development speed of a typical mobile device is often six months or less. Compare that with the design-to-production timing for a new vehicle of approximately four years and it's no wonder car-buying consumers have been underwhelmed by standard in-vehicle electronics. Even today, consumers can find navigation and infotainment systems designed in 2008 for sale in model-year (MY) 2014 vehicles. To give an idea of how ancient that is in "tech-years," BlackBerry held more than 50% market share among smartphone users in 2008. Remember BlackBerry?

Tesla has had a competitive advantage over auto industry rivals in design innovation since day one. Located in arguably the center of the world for technological innovation, Tesla was able not only to construct its vision of mobility in Silicon Valley, but also recruit its employees from many of the leading technology companies to design and build the car there as well. All other OEMs grasping for automotive technology leadership had to learn the culture of Silicon Valley, figure out how to adapt to it, and dissolve the century-old "way of doing things." Tesla was born into it.

Service differences

With Tesla's technology come some very important services. Perhaps at the top of the list is the convenience of over-the-air (OTA) software updates for vehicle recalls, which Tesla has made free and standard for Model S owners. This functionality has, in turn, created plenty of positive press for the company.

It all starts with the connection. The 3G connection in the Tesla infotainment system is already providing this solution via relatively old wireless technology. Since the modular and flexible hardware architecture of its infotainment system allows for mid-cycle technology enhancements, IHS expects Tesla will soon debut true 4G LTE connectivity in its vehicles. The added bandwidth will further enhance the OTA update service, as well as the rest of the services the Model S offers.

IHS forecasts a 60% global penetration rate on embedded cellular connections in cars by 2022, with 4G LTE bandwidth comprising roughly 60% of that market. GM and Audi have actually beaten Tesla to market on this specification as both OEMs already have 4G LTE cars on the road now.

One central purpose of this mass-market vehicle broadband adoption is to accommodate FOTA (firmware over the air) and SOTA (software over the air). Tesla has already deployed this function in part because it allows the company to provide vehicle service without needing to charge (or possibly pay) for service bay labor.

Consider Tesla's recall of the Model S for overheating charger plugs in January 2014. The day the recall notice came out, Tesla had all 29,222 Model S vehicles updated wirelessly and running the new safer version of the software. Ironically, around the same time, GM had a similar fire-related safety recall issued that also required a software update. Despite all of its vehicles having standard OnStar telematics, owners were required to take their cars into a dealership for the software update, costing GM a warranty labor expense on all 370,000 recall service appointments.

While far from a sure thing, nanotechnology offers significant business opportunities for companies willing and able to take the long view. One avenue is to identify a sizable opportunity in an existing market where a nanotech product can displace an existing inferior solution, e.g., a coating for an automobile that keeps itself clean, clears mist from side mirrors, or self-repairs scratches in the automotive paint.

Volume aside, Tesla paid much less on a per-vehicle basis than GM, simply by providing a software update procedure that has been on personal computers for more than two decades and mobile phones since before the BlackBerry.

IHS sees the OTA software trend continuing strongly. With vehicles like the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class claimed to have over 65 million lines of code—10 times that of the Boeing 767 Dreamliner—the automotive industry stands at a crossroads. Software recalls are about to become a major problem, one that will be expensive if this type of technology is not broadly deployed.

As of February 2014, over 530 software-related recalls had been reported since 1994 (see figure below). Among these, 75, or 14%, were issued for MY 2007 alone, with over 2.4 million vehicles affected. Numerous questions arise from the variation in volume by model year—not the least of which is, why have recalls for MY 2007 been so numerous? There are likely several reasons for this spike:

MY 2007 had the last large-sales volume before the economic recession plunged US car purchases from approximately 16 million to 10 million in 2010.

Many new electronics systems were added in MY 2007 for infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems, and core auto control systems, which increased the amount of software in the typical car.

MY 2007 involved recalls of 75 vehicles, the most of any model year. Many automotive OEMs had multiple model recalls with software updates. Toyota had especially high recall rates that included software updates.

It is in this context that IHS expects FOTA and SOTA to be enabled in over 22 million vehicles sold worldwide in 2020 alone, growing from approximately 200,000 vehicles in 2015. Major deployment will begin in 2017. In the meantime, Tesla will continue to leverage its first-to-market status with FOTA and SOTA to help lower overall costs to the end user and improve unit margins on each additional Model S sold.

Powertrain differences

The heart of Tesla's Model S is its electric propulsion system, which includes a battery, motor, drive inverter, and gearbox. The battery is a microprocessor-controlled lithium-ion unit available in two sizes; spending more buys more range and more power. The induction motor is a three-phase, four-pole AC unit with copper rotor. The drive inverter has variable-frequency drive and regenerative braking system, while the gearbox is a single-speed fixed gear with a 9.73:1 reduction ratio. The battery of each Model S is charged with a high-current power inlet, and each vehicle comes with a single 10kW charger and mobile connector with adapters for 110-volt and 240-volt outlets as well as a public charging station adapter.

This powertrain package allows Tesla to deliver a longer driving range than any other EV maker—about 200 miles versus just under 100—plus acceleration and driving performance similar to or better than a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle. While several automakers offer EV powertrains—Nissan's Leaf and Chevrolet's Volt, for example—none matches Tesla's commitment to EV development. And as a clean slate company, Tesla has had the advantage of developing an entirely new powertrain and supply chain without the hindrance of existing dealerships, physical plants, or inventory.

Other EV products use lithium-ion batteries, but in lower kWh and using fewer, but larger, battery cells. For example, the Nissan Leaf uses a 24kWh battery, with 192 cells and EPA-estimated range of 84 miles. The Model S' 85kWh battery has more than 7,100 cells, allowing it to move greater weight faster and with longer range.

To address range anxiety, Tesla has made a significant investment developing charging stations in the US (112 to date, according to the Tesla website), Europe (63), and Asia (17). These supercharger stations can swap out the battery in less time than it takes to fill a tank of gas. Owners must come back and swap again for their original battery. Nonetheless, this helps alleviate drivers' worries about becoming stranded on long trips.

Tesla is working to drive battery costs down in anticipation of the launch of its mass-market, $35,000 Model 3 EV sedan, which is slated to debut in 2017. To that end, the company recently announced a new $5 billion "gigafactory" battery plant in Nevada in partnership with Panasonic. It will reportedly handle all elements of battery cell production, from raw material to battery pack, rather than only battery pack assembly. And Tesla intends to sell its OEM batteries for non-automotive applications, which will enable it to increase production volume and reduce unit cost.

What does the future hold?

• Created a fun-to-drive electric roadster. Check.
• Leveraged the lessons to scale-up to a full-luxury sedan. Check.
• Disrupted the luxury car market and, according to IHS Automotive data, attracted "conquest" buyers from the likes of BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus, not to mention Toyota and other volume brands. Check.
• Diverged from entrenched supply chains to develop technology in-house and lowered per-unit development costs for an industry-leading infotainment platform. Check.
• Addressed a software-related vehicle safety recall in one day for almost 30,000 cars. Check
• Created a company destined to influence the industry as a whole and did so while pleasing Wall Street. Check.

Tesla has established benchmarks for infotainment system hardware, software flexibility, and manufacturing supply chain. The company innovated powertrain design, which has proven both robust and viable for everyday use. And it has received plenty of accolades for aesthetic design from the automotive media. The result is that "made in Silicon Valley" is no longer roundly dismissed as an option for an automotive OEM.

So what's next for Tesla? How does it maintain its leadership in technology development? Has it created a sustainable competitive advantage? Can it deliver on promises of a new luxury crossover with the Model X and a new high-volume EV competitor with the Model 3? Will Tesla be able to steal market share from not only luxury marques, but also from higher-volume brands?

Going forward, Tesla faces five distinct challenges:

Consumer demand. Perhaps the most significant is consumer acceptance of electric vehicles. In the first eight months of 2014, EVs accounted for only 0.7% of the 11.2 million light-vehicle sales in the US. Even Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, a staunch supporter of EVs, last year acknowledged Renault-Nissan would miss its original 2016 target of selling 1.5 million EVs by four to five years.

Dealerships and service. Today, Tesla's direct-sales model is illegal in most US states. As Tesla attempts to go mainstream, it will need the legal restrictions lifted or be forced to adjust its model. Further, as vehicles age and the numbers sold increase, there will be maintenance issues that cannot be handled by OTA software updates. Tesla will need to build out an after-sales service network that is robust enough to handle the demand.

Marketing. To date, demand for the Model S exceeds supply. But as the company targets the mass market with the Model 3 and aims for 500,000 units sold in 2020, it will need to beef up its marketing. Tesla's Apple Genius-bar-inspired dealership model has worked for the affluent early adopters, but can it be scaled up to meet its sales targets?

According to IHS registration data, 51.8% of all Tesla buyers have annual household incomes over $150,000. By comparison, the percentage of Chevrolet Malibu buyers with a household income higher than $150,000 is only 6.5%. Tesla will need to create a marketing strategy that targets economy-car consumers, who are notably different than those who buy the $80,000 to $100,000 Model S.

Production Boosting output will likely mean growing pains for Tesla as it transitions to a high-volume production model. How the company manages the transition will determine Tesla's near-term future. Of course, many automakers have had difficulties ramping up new plants or launches and yet overcome the challenges in the longer term. While growing pains are to be expected, there is no reason to believe Tesla does not have the capacity to become a volume manufacturer.

Innovation. Tesla has already made a name for itself around technology adoption and innovation. But it will be challenged, as all first movers are, to maintain that lead and continue to push the boundaries with future products. Assuming the gigafactory and its supply chain allow Tesla to make a mass-market offering and keep its infotainment stack as an industry benchmark, the company's next move will be automated driving. Musk has already stated that Tesla will "hit the market" by 2017 with a partially self-driving vehicle. With many other OEMs targeting this time frame as well, Tesla might not be as disruptive in automated driving as it has been in infotainment design and sustainable mobility

But then again, it might surprise the market and break loose another game-changing product or technology before the rest of the automotive industry is ready—because that's how Silicon Valley works.

Tesla's user-experience focus sets it apart

We live in an era of smartphone ubiquity. So we are routinely disappointed when we get into our cars and are forced to make do with resistive touch screens (if we are lucky) or LEDs and vacuum fluorescent displays controlled by dials and buttons (if we are not). Tesla understands the importance of smartphone ubiquity to modern life, so it's no accident the transition is seamless when one climbs into a Model S

That is not the case with the majority of comparably priced vehicles from other auto manufacturers. Indeed, many of the recent automotive infotainment systems that the IHS Teardown Team has analyzed feature relatively small displays (typically 7-inch diagonal size or less) and low resolution (typically 800 x 480 WVGA or less).

Then there's the touch technology. Many of the touch screens IHS tears down in automotive head units are using resistive technology. Combine these legacy technologies with often underpowered processing chips and proprietary software and you often end up with a user experience that is unfamiliar, not intuitive, and has a lot of "latency" issues (meaning it's slow).

At the center of the dashboard in the 2013 Model S is the Tesla Premium Media Control Unit, which blows away all of the head units we have seen in specs, not to mention sheer size. The 17-inch diagonal display with touch screen makes for a very large assembly when removed from the dash. Inside the unit are many subassemblies, which are all modular, giving Tesla numerous design options for future models.

Several of the printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies, including the main assembly, feature Tesla Motors logos and copyrights, meaning that they are all designed and controlled by Tesla. In and of itself, this is unusual, as we find that most automotive OEMs entrust and outsource the bulk of their head unit designs to third parties such as Harman

Automotive, Panasonic, Alpine, Denso, Pioneer, and others. Tesla is thus designing and controlling the bill of materials down to the component level. This is closer to Apple's design-and-build model than it is to other automakers.

Such an approach affords Tesla leverage in the supply chain, more direct control over the finished product, and ultimately more control over the user experience. It also gives Tesla a potential performance and technology edge that others might find difficult to quickly emulate, as so much of the design is done in-house at Tesla rather than by the head unit suppliers.

Many other PCB assemblies are modular and come from third parties, such as the processing PCB, which is a turnkey solution from NVIDIA, and the air interface module, which is from Sierra Wireless.

All told, there are 10 PCB assemblies in Tesla's media control unit. The modularity of this design is not unusual for automotive electronic systems and allows Tesla many options. If Tesla wants to upgrade the processing power or change the air interface module, it may be possible to achieve this more easily and with less redesign than if all of the functions were integrated into fewer PCB assemblies. In this sense, modularity of design, rather than aggressive integration, has always been an automotive electronic standard. Not only does modularity give automotive designers many upgrade options, it improves reparability.

The center console of the Tesla Model S is dominated by a 17-inch touch screen infotainment system, which is an industry benchmark for automotive display integration.

What's inside the Model S?

In August 2014, IHS bought a second-hand 2013 Tesla Model S. The Los Angeles-based IHS Technology Teardown Team set to work pulling it apart to examine all primary systems inside the car. The team has cataloged every component and developed a detailed bill of materials for each system that includes the technical specifications, cost, and manufacturers of the components. In addition, the team estimated the labor and manufacturing cost of each system.

The 12 systems analyzed by the IHS Teardown Team comprised the following:

• Premium Media Control Unit
• Instrument Cluster
• EV Inlet Assembly
• High-Voltage Junction Box
• Battery Charger
• Thermal Controller
• Liftgate Left Hand Taillight
• Power Liftgate Module
• Body Control Unit
• Sunroof Control Unit
• Passive Safety Restraints Control Module

Mark Boyadjis, Senior Analyst, Infotainment and Human-machine Interface, IHS Automotive Andrew Rassweiler, Senior Director, Teardown Services, IHS Technology Stephanie Brinley, Senior Analyst, Americas, IHS Automotive Posted 7 October 2014

Keep yourself updated with the latest automotive insights featured on our Mobility News and Assets Community page to stay ahead of your competition.

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• Digital Transformation

8 Examples of Innovative Digital Transformation Case Studies (2024)

• Published: January 19, 2022
• Updated: September 11, 2024

With the rapid pace of technological advancement, every organization needs to undergo digital transformation and, most likely, transform multiple times to stay relevant and competitive. 

However, before you can reap the benefits of new technology, you must first get your customers and employees to adapt to this change successfully—and here lies a significant digital transformation challenge.

Organizations thriving in this digital-first era have developed digital innovation strategies prioritizing the change management mindset. This paradigm shift implies that organizations should continuously explore improving business processes .

8 Best Examples of Digital Transformation Case Studies in 2024

• Amazon Business
• Under Armour
• Internet Brands®
• Michelin Solutions

8 Examples of Inspiring Digital Transformation Case Studies

While digital transformation presents unique opportunities for organizations to innovate and grow, it also presents significant digital transformation challenges . Also, digital maturity and levels of digital transformation by sector vary widely.

If you have the budget, you can consider hiring a digital transformation consulting company to help you plan your digitization. However, the best way to develop an effective digital transformation strategy is to learn by example. 

Here are the 8 inspiring digital transformation case studies to consider when undertaking transformation projects in 2024:

1. Amazon extended the B2C model to embrace B2B transactions with a vision to improve the customer experience.

Overview of the digital transformation initiative

Amazon Business is an example of how a consumer giant transitions to the B2B space to keep up with the digital customer expectations. It provides a marketplace for businesses to purchase from Amazon and third parties. Individuals can also make purchases on behalf of their organizations and integrate order approval workflows and reporting.

The approach

• Amazon created a holistic marketplace for B2B vendors by offering over 250 million products ranging from cleaning supplies to industrial equipment. 
• It introduced free two-day shipping on orders worth $49 or more and exclusive price discounts. It further offered purchase system integration, tax-exemption on purchases from select qualified customers, shared payment methods, order approval workflows, and enhanced order reporting.
• Amazon allowed manufacturers to connect with buyers & answer questions about products in a live expert program.
• Amazon could tap the B2B wholesale market valued between $7.2 and $8.2 trillion in the U.S. alone.
• It began earning revenue by charging sales commissions ranging from 6-15% from third-party sellers, depending on the product category and the order size.
• It could offer more personalized products for an improved customer experience. 

2. Netflix transformed the entertainment industry by offering on-demand subscription-based video services to its customers.

Like the video rental company Blockbuster, Netflix also had a pay-per-rental model, which included DVD sales and rent-by-mail services. However, Netflix anticipated a change in customer demand with rising digitalization and provided online entertainment, thereby wiping out Blockbuster – and the movie rental industry – entirely. 

• In 2007, Netflix launched a video-on-demand streaming service to supplement their DVD rental service without any additional cost to their subscriber base.
• It implemented a simple and scalable business model and infused 10% of its budget in R&D consistently.
• The company has an unparalleled recommendation engine to provide a personalized and relevant customer experience. 
• Netflix is the most popular digital video content provider, leading other streaming giants such as Amazon, Hulu, and Youtube with over 85% market share.
• Netflix added a record 36 million subscribers directly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Tesla uses connected car technology and over-the-air software updates to enhance customer experience, enable cost savings, and reduce carbon emissions.

No digital transformation discussion is complete without acknowledging the unconventional ideas implemented by Elon Musk. Tesla was a huge manifestation of digital transformation as the core motive was to prove that electric cars are better than their gasoline counterparts both in looks and performance. 

Over the years, Tesla has innovated continuously to improve its product, make itself more economical, and reduce its carbon footprint. 

• Tesla is the only auto manufacturer globally, providing automatic over-the-air firmware updates that allow its cars to remotely improve their safety, performance, and infotainment capabilities. For example, the OTA update could fix Tesla’soverheating issues due to power fluctuation. 
• Tesla launched an autopilot feature to control the speed and position of the car when on highways to avoid potential accidents. However, the user still has to hold the wheel; the vehicle controls everything else. This connected car technology has created an intelligent data platform and smart autonomous driving experience.
• Tesla further ventured into a data-driven future, and it uses analytics to obtain actionable insights from demand trends and common complaints. A noteworthy fact is that the company has been collecting driving data from all of its first and second-generation vehicles. So far, Tesla has collected driving data on 8 billion miles while Google’s autonomous car project, Waymo , has accumulated data on 10 million miles.
• Tesla’s over-the-air updates reduce carbon emissions by saving users’ dealer visits. Additionally, these updates save consumers time and money.
• Tesla delivered a record 936,172 vehicles in 2021, an 87 % increase over the 499,550 vehicle deliveries made in 2020.

4. Glassdoor revolutionized the recruitment industry by allowing employees to make informed decisions.

Glassdoor is responsible for increasing transparency in the workplace and helping people find the right job by allowing them to see millions of peer-to-peer reviews on employers, including overall company culture, their CEOs, benefits, salaries, and more. 

• Glassdoor gathers and analyzes employee reviews on employers to provide accurate job recommendations to candidates and vice-versa. It also allows recruitment agencies and organizations to download valuable data points for in-depth analysis & reporting. 
• It further introduced enhanced profiles as a paid program, allowing companies to customize their content on the Glassdoor profiles, including job listings, “Why is it the Best Place to Work” tabs, social media properties, and more. This gives companies a new, innovative way to attract and recruit top talent.
• Glassdoor created the largest pool of interview questions, salary insights, CEO ratings, and organizational culture via a peer-to-peer network, making it one of the most trustworthy, extensive jobs search and recruiting platforms – and one of the most well-recognized review sites
• Glassdoor leverages its collected data for labor market research in the US. Its portfolio of Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 84.2%, while the “Best Places to Work” portfolio outperformed the overall market by 115.6%.

5. Under Armour diversified from an athletic apparel company to a new data-driven digital business stream to transform the fitness industry.

Under Armour introduced the concept of “Connected Fitness” by providing a platform to track, analyze and share personal health data directly to its customers’ phones.

• Under Armour acquired several technology-based fitness organizations such as MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and European fitness app Endomondo for a combined $715 million to obtain the required technology and an extensive customer database to get its fitness app up and running. The application provides a stream of information to Under Armour, identifying fitness and health trends. For example, Under Armour (Baltimore) immediately recognized a walking trend that started in Australia, allowing them to deploy localized marketing and distribution efforts way before their competitors knew about it.
• Under Armour merged its physical and digital offerings to provide an immersive customer experience via products such as Armourbox. The company urged its customers to go online and share their training schedule, favorite shoe style, and fitness goals. It used advanced analytics to send customers new shoes or apparel on a subscription basis, offering customers a more significant value over their lifetime.
• It additionally moved to an agile development model and data center footprint with the ERP SAP HANA . 
• Under Armour additionally leveraged Dell EMC’s Data Protection and Dell Technologies to help fuel digital innovation and find peak value from its data.
• Under Armour created a digital brand with a strong consumer focus, agility, and change culture. 
• With the Connected Fitness app, it provided a customer experience tailored to each consumer.

6. Internet Brands® subsidiary Baystone Media leverages Whatfix DAP to drive product adoption of its healthcare businesses.

Baystone Media provides end-to-end marketing solutions for healthcare companies by providing a low-cost, high-value subscription offering of Internet Brands® to promote their practices digitally. Baystone Media empowers its customers by offering a codeless creation of personalized websites. However, as its userbase is less tech-savvy, customers were unable to make the most of their solution. 

The idea was to implement a solution for Baystone Media & its sister companies to enable its clients to navigate its platforms easily. In addition to PDFs and specific training videos, the search was on for a real-time interactive walkthrough solution, culminating with Whatfix .

Baystone media saw a 10% decrease in inbound calls and a 4.17% decrease in support tickets, giving them the runway to spend more time enhancing its service for the clients.

7. Sophos implemented Salesforce to streamline its business and manage customer relations more effectively.

Sophos went live with Salesforce to accelerate its sales process , enhance sales productivity , and increase the number of accounts won. However, the complex interface and regular updates of Salesforce resulted in a decreased ROI. 

• Sophos implemented Whatfix to provide interactive, on-demand training that helped users learn in the flow of work. The 24*7 availability of on-demand self-support, contextual guidance, and smart tips allowed Sophos to manage its new CRM implementation effectively. 
• It unified internal communications using Whatfix content. First, they created walkthroughs for the basic functionality of Salesforce such as lead management, opportunities, etc. Next, they moved to slightly more complex features that their users were uncomfortable with and created guided walkthroughs and smart pop-ups. Sophos also used Whatfix to align the sales and product management teams by embedding videos and other media to unify product communication instead of relying on various communication tools.
• Sophos experienced a reduction in sales operations support tickets globally by 15% (~12,000 tickets). It saved 1070 man-hours and achieved an ROI of 342%. 

8. Michelin Solutions uses IoT & AI to provide customers with a more holistic mobility experience.

The digital strategy of Michelin Solutions has essentially centered around three priorities:

• Creating a personalized relationship with customers and end-users
• Developing new business models
• Improving their existing business processes 
• AI is extensively used in R&D, enabling the digital supply chain driven through digital manufacturing and predictive maintenance. For example, connected bracelets assist machine operators with the manufacturing process. 
• It deployed sophisticated robots to take over the clerical tasks and leveraged advanced analytics to become a data-driven organization. 
• Offerings such as Effifuel & Effitires resulted in significant cost savings and improved overall vehicle efficiency. 
• Michelin Solutions carefully enforced cultural change and launched small pilots before the change implementation . 

• Effifuel led to extra savings for organizations and doubled per-vehicle profits.
• A reduction in fuel consumption by 2.5 L per 100km was observed which translates into annual savings of €3,200 for long-haul transport (at least 2.1% reduction in the total cost of ownership & 8 tonnes in CO2 emissions).
• Michelin Solutions shifted its business model from selling tires to a service guaranteeing performance, helping it achieve higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and raised EBITDA margins.

Each industry & organization faces unique challenges while driving digital transformation initiatives. Each organization must find a personalized solution and the right digital transformation model when implementing new technology. Their challenges can prepare you better for the potential roadblocks, but the specific solutions will need to be personalized according to your business requirements.

Open communication with your customers and employees will help you spot potential issues early on, and you can use case studies like these as a starting point.

If you would like to learn how you can achieve these results by using a digital adoption platform , then schedule a conversation with our experts today.

Request a demo to see how Whatfix empowers organizations to improve end-user adoption and provide on-demand customer support

Backcasting supports cross-sectoral collaboration and social-technical innovation bundling: case studies in agri-food systems

• From The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
• Published on 21.08.24

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There is a clear and urgent call to transform our food systems as a critical nexus to tackle ongoing global climate, biodiversity, equity, and nutrition crises. Many food and agricultural innovations are being developed and scaled but these innovations often target sector-specific problems and remain disconnected from the more complex demand for transformative change at scale. To bridge this demand for systemic change within the innovation ecosystem, initiatives are applying various approaches such as visioning, holistic assessments, innovation portfolio management and multistakeholder co-creation. Here we report on insights from applying a food systems tailored backcasting approach in a diversity of settings since 2021, including a national food system dialogue, a youth business innovation challenge, a landscape multi-stakeholder platform, a public-private sector co-learning session, an agroecological transitions program, and a hybrid food systems university course for graduate students and global professionals. We thereby build on existing literature and case studies of how change happens (or does not happen) and aim to use those insights to support food systems change makers. Across these settings, the backcasting approach asks participants to connect innovations with broader systems-change visions, to anticipate tradeoffs for multiple food system outcomes and population groups, and to cross sectoral boundaries. The use cases demonstrate that the backcasting process contributes to changes in views, practices and structures that participants work with. Specifically, it supports moving beyond “silver bullet” innovation approaches, the bundling of social and technical innovations, and building action-oriented cross-sectoral bridges. Food systems change is complex and innovations alone are insufficient to address its complexity. But innovations can play a positive role if connected to more holistic systems-change processes and goals. Considering strengths and limitations of the backcasting approach, the diversity of practical applications supports its potential to connect innovations to holistic food systems visions, to strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration and to bundle social and technical innovations for desirable food systems change.

Remans, R.; Zornetzer, H.; Mason-D’Croz, D.; Kugler, C.; Thornton, P.; Pedersen, C.; Cattaneo, F.; Samantaray, D.; Brouwer, I.D.; Bosch, D.; Bekele, T.H.; Martinez, S.; Ivanova, Y.; Sánchez Choy, J.G.; Mockshell, J.; Bergamini, N.; Tibebe, D.; Balcha, Y.; Ebrahim, M.; Misiko, M.; Sainepo, B.; Magesa, R.; Aynekulu, E.; Herrero, M. 

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Too Good To Go: A Surprise Bag that Creates a Win for Business and the Environment

Transitioning to a greener economy often requires significant pain and costs, which makes it difficult for responsible business professionals to build sustainability into their businesses. Can there be a way to achieve sustainability in business without compromising profits and growth? The case titled “Too Good To Go: A Surprise Bag That Creates a Win For Business and the Environment” addresses this challenge. It highlights a new way of thinking about innovation and growth that defies the conventional wisdom that sustainable practices must come at the expense of profit and value. Specifically, the case illustrates how the deep-rooted but largely taken-for-granted problem of food waste in the food retail and service industry could be a brand-new opportunity for lucrative and accountable business. Facing tension between economic incentives and the social good in running the food business sustainably, Too Good To Go (TGTG) created an innovative two-sided new market that connects surplus food with customers. It shifted surplus food from waste to product, from charitable action to profitable business action, and from cheap food to conscious consumption. In this way, TGTG broke the dilemma that any food business operator had regarding food waste that is too good to go. The company instantly appealed to local businesses, big-name retailers, and consumers, as it aligned the value for customers and profits for both TGTG and its partners, while society enjoyed a positive impact by reducing food waste. This is an excellent case for teaching innovation and growth in the era of sustainability, as it presents a path to breaking the trade-off between profitable growth and sustainability by broadening the perspective of innovation beyond disruption.

1. To understand the rising importance of sustainability issues and the dilemma that businesses face in pursuing profitability and responsibility. How can food waste reduction be achieved without compromising a company’s current profitability? 2. To uncover a critical bottleneck in adopting sustainable practices by challenging existing assumptions in the industry. TGTG unearthed a deep-rooted yet taken-for-granted problem of the food retail and service industry that normalized wasting leftovers. Instead of defining a problem within the existing options for repurposing food waste – donation and clearance – TGTG challenged the existing assumptions in the industry. 3. To analyze the implications of conventional assumptions within the industry boundaries and reframe them to unlock new business opportunities. TGTG reframed the existing assumptions on surplus food to pursue both social responsibility (no waste) and profitability (a new revenue stream with minimal cost and effort). 4. To discuss the consequences of market creation beyond existing boundaries. As a new (or unearthed) problem is identified and solved, the outcome has positive-sum gains, without increasing the costs to others. The TGTG marketplace creates economic and social value that provides wins for food businesses and consumers while ensuring profitable growth for the company and contributing to society by reducing food waste and carbon emissions. 5. To learn how to build a business model in a way that achieves both differentiation and low cost. TGTG adopts the sharing platform economy model, which effectively creates value for surplus food at low cost.

• Sustainability
• Sustainable Consumption
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Corporate Responsibility
• Digital Platform
• Strategy Alignment
• Value Innovation
• Blue Ocean Strategy
• Nondisruptive Creation
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How Apple Is Organized for Innovation

• Joel M. Podolny
• Morten T. Hansen

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, in 1997, it had a conventional structure for a company of its size and scope. It was divided into business units, each with its own P&L responsibilities. Believing that conventional management had stifled innovation, Jobs laid off the general managers of all the business units (in a single day), put the entire company under one P&L, and combined the disparate functional departments of the business units into one functional organization. Although such a structure is common for small entrepreneurial firms, Apple—remarkably—retains it today, even though the company is nearly 40 times as large in terms of revenue and far more complex than it was in 1997. In this article the authors discuss the innovation benefits and leadership challenges of Apple’s distinctive and ever-evolving organizational model in the belief that it may be useful for other companies competing in rapidly changing environments.

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Idea in Brief

The challenge.

Major companies competing in many industries struggle to stay abreast of rapidly changing technologies.

One Major Cause

They are typically organized into business units, each with its own set of functions. Thus the key decision makers—the unit leaders—lack a deep understanding of all the domains that answer to them.

The Apple Model

The company is organized around functions, and expertise aligns with decision rights. Leaders are cross-functionally collaborative and deeply knowledgeable about details.

Apple is well-known for its innovations in hardware, software, and services. Thanks to them, it grew from some 8,000 employees and $7 billion in revenue in 1997, the year Steve Jobs returned, to 137,000 employees and $260 billion in revenue in 2019. Much less well-known are the organizational design and the associated leadership model that have played a crucial role in the company’s innovation success.

• Joel M. Podolny is the dean and vice president of Apple University in Cupertino, California. The former dean of the Yale School of Management, Podolny was a professor at Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
• MH Morten T. Hansen is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty member at Apple University, Apple. He is the author of Great at Work and Collaboration and coauthor of Great by Choice . He was named one of the top management thinkers in the world by the Thinkers50 in 2019. MortentHansen

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UCL Centre for Digital Innovation Recognised for Knowledge Exchange Excellence in KEF Results

19 September 2024

The latest Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) results are out, and we're excited to announce that the UCL Centre for Digital Innovation (CDI) has been recognised as a key contributor to UCL’s exceptional performance.

UCL has been named the leading university in the UK for working with businesses, and CDI’s activities have played a significant role in this achievement. Our work exemplifies the power of knowledge exchange, driving real-world impact across HealthTech and EdTech sectors on both national and international levels.

At UCL CDI , we specialise in bridging academic expertise with industry collaboration to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Our initiatives not only contribute to UCL’s knowledge exchange success but also transform research and resources into solutions that deliver significant social and economic impact.

Key Examples of Our Knowledge Exchange Activities:

12-week Impact Accelerator : This programme fast-tracks startups by offering tailored mentorship, workshops, and support, enabling them to achieve in 12 weeks what typically takes 6 to 12 months. HealthTech and EdTech startups benefit from the combined expertise of UCL and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale efficiently.

Doctoral Scholarships : Our expanding portfolio of PhD scholarships supports researchers in applying cutting-edge cloud, AI, and machine learning technologies to address real-world problems. This exchange between academia and industry drives innovations that tackle challenges in healthcare, education, and beyond.

Workshops and Training : We host regular workshops exploring opportunities and challenges in digital innovation, helping entrepreneurs and researchers develop skills needed to integrate advanced technologies. These sessions foster collaboration and drive knowledge transfer between UCL’s research community and external businesses.

Collaborative Space : Our meet-up and co-creation spaces serve as hubs for researchers, startups, and industry leaders to connect, share ideas, and develop innovative solutions. This ongoing knowledge exchange strengthens partnerships and enhances the development of impactful solutions.

These initiatives have made a tangible impact, supporting 19 startups , assisting 24 PhD researchers , and helping secure over £8.5 million in research grants. Our work demonstrates how knowledge exchange with businesses can lead to breakthrough technologies, from advancing healthcare diagnostics to revolutionising educational research.

Watch the KEF Case Study Video

Discover the impact of UCL CDI in our case study video on the UCL Innovation and Enterprise page. See how our partnership with AWS is driving digital innovation and creating real-world impact. The video features the journey of Shift Partner , an alumnus of our Impact Accelerator Programme, and showcases how CDI’s support helped this startup scale.

Watch now to see these success stories in action: UCL Innovation and Enterprise Page .

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CBP Case Study: Global Entry

Traveling abroad is exciting, but it can also be tiring. After a long flight coping with time zone changes, experiencing long lines upon entry can be extremely taxing. In these scenarios, the best experience a user can have is a seamless and unobtrusive one. This frictionless experience describes the future state vision for Global Entry.

Global Entry is one of the Department of Homeland Security’s Trusted Traveler Programs (TTPs), upholding U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP’s) mission of national security while offering over 14 million travelers expedited clearance upon arrival to the United States after an international flight. Global Entry applicants undergo comprehensive background checks, must complete an interview and if deemed eligible, become members. These trusted travelers are then able to bypass the general primary processing line and experience a more streamlined processing using enhanced technology. Travelers have the option of using the GE mobile app or a portal in the arrival areas. A member interviewed in late 2023 said “I feel like a VIP knowing I have Global Entry. I don’t have to wait in those crazy lines.”

CPBX's Approach

In fiscal year 2024, CBP Experience (CBPX) focused on reimagining Global Entry to offer a more optimized, user-centric, and seamless experience to travelers and the officers who facilitate the program. CBPX's human-centered approach included engaging with Global Entry members, CBP Officers, and Global Entry stakeholders from start to finish, including:

• Interviewing 9 travelers and 13 CBP officers and stakeholders to understand their experiences, pains, needs, and wants for Global Entry.
• Co-creating a current state service blueprint of the Global Entry program with CBP stakeholders.
• Reduce Administrative Burden
• Return Time to Mission
• Avoid Costs
• Increase National Security & Integrity
• Increase Communications & Transparency
• Modernize Technology

Humanizing the Traveling Experience  

By applying human-centered design principles, CBPX identified that travelers are relieved to have an expedited processing experience when they use their benefits after an international flight. However, there are various opportunities to further improve the experience for travelers and officers across the program’s core processes of enrollment, re-entry, and renewal.

Increased visibility into application status and steps to reduce the interview and vetting queue can lessen stakeholder anxiety and leave them feeling confident throughout the enrollment process. Efforts to align the pace of human interaction with the time it takes travelers to be cleared using the Global Entry portals and mobile app can reduce burden on officers and keep time savings consistent throughout the re-entry process. Optimizing the Global Entry mobile app with the inclusion of multi-functional features (e.g., port navigation, smart queuing, etc.) and real-time, relevant information during re-entry would increase its value and enable a method to continue to discover traveler needs.

These current state insights informed an in-depth understanding of stakeholder needs, guiding the co-creation and design of the future state for the Global Entry program.

Global Entry’s Future State

Using the current state research, CBPX created a visual journey map of travelers’ and CBP officers’ end-to-end experience as they interact with products and services in Global Entry’s core processes. The Global Entry user journey map captures the experiences of users, helping to pinpoint opportunities for improvement and measuring the program's impact. The creation of a journey map provides valuable insights by illuminating the user experience, fostering empathy, and informing the creation of user-centered solutions that align with stakeholder goals.

Innovations and Improvements

Global Entry’s future state leverages modern technology, process standardization, and increased communication to strengthen CBP’s mission and reduce the administrative and time burden placed on stakeholders. The program improvement goals listed below promote program expansion, encourage continuous innovation, and streamline the program’s core processes for stakeholders.

• Reduced Administrative Burden: Process automation and optimization decreases the administrative and cognitive burden on CBP personnel and travelers.
• Returned Time to Mission: Fewer administrative tasks free up CBP officers to focus on high-risk travelers and lessens time requirements of travelers.
• Cost Avoidance: Reduced and streamlined administrative work enables CBP to reprioritize funds that would be spent on resolving inquiries and processing applications.
• Increased National Security & Integrity: Enabling the expansion of the Global Entry program captures data from more applicants – both high and low risk.
• Increased Communication & Transparency: Targeted improvements to communicating the process, expectations, and progress to trusted travelers demonstrates CBP’s commitment to facilitating a supportive and trustworthy program.
• Modernized Technology: A simplified, streamlined process with enhanced technology makes compliance easier for participants in the process and reduces administrative burden.

Looking Ahead

To realize the future state vision for the Global Entry program, CBPX will continue collaborating with stakeholders to develop a comprehensive roadmap and implementation plan that outlines the steps necessary to achieve the innovations and improvements defined in the future state journey map.

For more information about Global Entry, visit https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry or, head over to https://ttp.dhs.gov/ to start your Global Entry application and join over 13 million members in enjoying a more streamlined and frictionless experience.

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Integrating social policy dimensions into entrepreneurship education: a perspective from India

• Original Paper
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• Published: 17 September 2024

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• Michael Snowden   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1218-7434 1 ,
• Liz Towns-Andrews 2 ,
• Jamie P. Halsall 1 ,
• Roopinder Oberoi 3 &
• Walter Mswaka 4  

Social innovation and social enterprise are often supposed as methodological solutions to address multifaceted socio-economic problems, due to the sharing of ideas and their involvement of stakeholders from different sectors. This cooperative treatise (Ziegler in Innov Eur J Soc Sci Res 30:388–405, 2017) is striking to legislators across the political gamut. This research is therefore positioned within the broader literature on social innovation and its policy relevance; even though social innovation is not a novel thought, the application of social innovation as a policy idea and its part in relation to the restructuring of the prevailing welfare establishment has gained momentum in recent years. Hence, in their paper the authors will examine how social enterprise as a concept can act as a positive catalyst for influencing policy (i.e. public and social) in the developing world. To meet the overall aim of this paper, the authors employed a case study of India and applied a three-step approach, namely: (1) a literature review process that explored a variety of policy methods that can influence on the accomplishment and measurement of social enterprises; (2) a policy survey, which entailed desk-based searches of national and state-level policies, followed by stakeholder consultation queries to complement online results; and (3) qualitative interviews with stakeholders from government agencies and departments at national and state levels, including the Ministry of Finance, representatives of private industry, chambers of commerce, social investors, social enterprise networks, and advocacy leads. The research findings that are presented in this paper were funded by Delhi School of Public Policy and Governance, Institute of Eminence at the University of Delhi.

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Introduction

This paper presents an exploration of the various facets of the social enterprise ecosystem within India and how government, organisational, and institutional policies directly and indirectly impact social enterprises through specific targeted actions or by influencing the broader policy framework within which they operate. This can have either a positive or negative impact on the development of social entrepreneurship. When an organisational body specifically designed for social enterprises exists, it serves as a convenient ‘one-stop-shop’ for specific issues associated with social enterprise and provides a vehicle of support for social entrepreneurs. For example, the global organisation Social Enterprise Mark, which is an award-winning international social enterprise accreditation authority based in the UK that recognises and builds the capabilities of social enterprises as competitive, sustainable businesses, dedicated to maximising social impact (Social Enterprise Mark, n.d. ). The one-stop approach to social enterprise support provides a valuable support system for social enterprises and social entrepreneurs as they strive to create favourable ecosystems that support social enterprise growth and development though an holistic approach that considers the unique aspects of their business models.

Institutions internationally are increasingly acknowledging social enterprises as crucial partners in their pursuit of sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous societies. The significance of this was acknowledged in the Spring of 2023 by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Social Inclusion (UN, 2023 ), emphasising the contribution that social enterprise can make towards attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Adoption of this unprecedented, unopposed resolution that calls upon institutions within the global community to support the development of social enterprise is a clear catalyst for the social and solidarity economy that placed emphasis on social justice.

However, social enterprise is in a state of infancy and is juxtaposed against the demands of the UNDP; this paper, therefore, addresses those facets of the social enterprise ecosystem within India and how Integration of social policy into entrepreneurship education facilitates understanding and application of social enterprise at institutional, regional, national, and international levels. The first assessment of the institutional context is broken down into three key components:

State Policy and Programmes: The assessment involves examining whether there is an established state policy, approach, action plan, or dedicated programme. These elements guide the overall direction and priorities within the institution.

Uniformity: The exploration considers legal, political, and professional standards to identify consistency and inconsistencies across administrative bodies and agencies.

Policy Framework: Understanding the policy framework requires the study of those processes that develop, implement, and monitor the institutional framework. A crucial element of this is the engagement and collaboration with relevant stakeholders and beneficiaries.

However, this cannot be simply broken down into a set of three steps. As identified by Oberoi et al. ( 2022 ), the nature of social enterprise is dynamic, multifaceted, and complex. Therefore, when assessing the interaction between institutional bodies (such as chambers of commerce) and social enterprises, several key factors influence the relationship. First, a clearly defined and informed institutional framework—whether through a nationwide policy, agreed strategic approach and plan, or a dedicated schemata—provides valuable support for social enterprise growth and development. In addition, statutory and legal frameworks that complement the policy contribute to feasibility and sustainability. Developing this framework creates a significant challenge for those disciplines that are embryonic. For example, it is well documented that the social enterprise knowledge base is poorly developed, that strategies, polices, and programmes are often untested, and that change adopted and implemented is frequently not built on an evidence base (Halsall et al., 2022a , 2022b ).

To ensure success, active engagement with other institutional bodies is vital. This involvement facilitates information sharing, connecting social enterprises and entrepreneurs with public and statutory agencies, formal and informal support networks, and financial providers. The statutory body itself can contribute by raising awareness through campaigns and by monitoring, assessing, and evaluating the implementation of social enterprise related strategies and development plans. In the Indian context, creating an enabling environment and recognising the government’s pivotal role in supporting the social enterprise sector are key considerations that influence success (British Council 2015 ; British Council 2016 ; British Council 2020 ).

Establishing a collaborative, collegial, coherent, and holistic framework to support the emergence and consolidation of social enterprises is crucial for maximising their social and economic impact. While the plans themselves are essential, policy approaches play an equally significant role. Effective policies are more likely to emerge when built through horizontal cooperation (across different administration portfolios) and vertical coordination (across various levels of administration), in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. This collaborative approach reduces the likelihood of anomalies leading to better policy consistency and overall effectiveness. The authors of this paper have identified four areas that are underrepresented within existing literature and are distinctly related to policy frameworks for innovation and social enterprise in India.

Social enterprises often operate at the juncture of different policy areas and disciplines. Consequently, their actions are entwined with various government ministries and agencies. Engaging in a collaborative dialogue with a broad range of relevant stakeholders and beneficiaries (perceived and actual) allows for a richer understanding of the presenting issues. This understanding contributes to the development of well-informed, real-world policies that effectively address emergent challenges and contribute to the sustainability and longevity of policies.

Legal frameworks play a crucial role in shaping policies. They can legitimise social enterprises and expand the legal definition of ‘enterprise’ to include entities that blend entrepreneurial approaches with social and environmental missions. The trend towards embracing legal and statutory frameworks reflects the enhanced interest in social enterprises and other entities of the social economy. These entities prioritise public and social interests and make a distinct contribution to specific policies (such as renewable energy and other green initiatives) and strategic priorities, including job creation, skills development, and public health initiatives for disadvantaged and marginalised groups. However, globally there is a reliance on working definitions (that are frequently poorly crafted) and criteria (embedded in strategies and action plans) to identify social enterprises.

The existent literature demonstrates a research topic in its infancy (Campopiano & Bassani, 2021 ; Farinha et al., 2020 ; Novak, 2021 ; Opuni et al., 2022 ; Winful et al., 2022 ) and characterised by four key themes that include social entrepreneurship, social movement, community development, and social innovation (Farinha et al., 2020 ; Winful et al., 2022 ). Academic research on social entrepreneurship has emphasised the social outcome of business activities that aim for value creation beyond profit maximisation (Campopiano & Bassani, 2021 ; Del Gesso, 2020 ). However, the research is dominated by the disciplines of Business and Management Studies; subsequently, the social impact of research is often understated (Snowden et al., 2023a ).

Social innovation is often seen as the opportunity for social enterprises to significantly invest in the creation of social outcomes to address people's needs. Social innovation and social enterprise are often proposed as a solution to address multifaceted social economic problems, by sharing ideas and involving stakeholders from different sectors. This cooperative treatise, as described by Ziegler ( 2017 ), presents an opportunity to legislators across the political spectrum.

Recent work carried out by the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency ( 2018 ) and Snowden et al., ( 2023a , 2023b , 2023c ) has illustrated that there are diverse aspects of social entrepreneurship, which have been influenced by international public policy in the context of social, economic, cultural, political, and sustainability agendas. Consequently, this has created a new emphasis on entrepreneurship, innovation, and social enterprise driven by the social justice and socio-environmental debate that has emerged strongly since the COVID pandemic. Nonetheless, it is this complexity that has resulted in conceptual challenges regarding the nature of social enterprise and its relationship with the social entrepreneur.

Social enterprise is not a new concept, but it is growing exponentially as illustrated by the post-pandemic abundance of academic literature on the rise of social enterprise (Chilufya et al., 2023 ; Halsall et al., 2022a ; Oberoi, 2021 ). This increased attention has been evident in a global context, as many governments across the world are shifting away from state-controlled, funded projects and moving towards a more social entrepreneurial approach. The emerging contemporary notions of social enterprise and the social entrepreneur are contributing to an identity and establishing some degree of clarity upon the nature and purpose of a social enterprise.

The impetus for this renewed vigour towards social enterprise is linked to the world adjusting to the demands of living in a post-COVID world (Oberoi et al., 2022 ). It is widely accepted that the global social welfare system is broken and traditional welfare models are ill-equipped to address the emerging social needs in the wake of the pandemic. As a result, there is a clear need for fresh, creative ideas to replace intransigent, archaic, and inflexible systems of welfare. Halsall et al. ( 2020 ) reaffirm this view, commenting that the traditional, rigid, institutionalised assumption of a two-sector economic model is being replaced with the view that social enterprise can provide a mitigating conduit to deal with the challenges associated with social and economic problems.

Social entrepreneurship is underpinned by strong social innovation. Despite social innovation’s long history, it remains relatively under-researched, leading to untapped opportunities (Farinha et al., 2020 ). For social enterprise to develop, it must be underpinned by strong social innovation, and ensuring the connection between social innovation and social enterprise is crucial because both address social and environmental challenges, aiming for positive change but are co-dependent on each other. These approaches provide innovative solutions for pressing issues such as poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, healthcare access, and education. By combining innovative creative thinking with practical solutions, they offer new ways to solve complex problems. Both social innovation and social enterprise prioritise long-term sustainability, moving beyond short-term fixes to address root causes. Collaboration and partnerships are essential, involving government agencies, non-profits organisations, industries, institutions, and communities collaborating towards shared goals, enhancing efficiency, scalability, and sustainability.

A contemporary popular definition for social enterprise is provided by the global organisation Deloitte ( 2018 ), which suggests that a social enterprise is an organisation that combines revenue growth and profit-making with a commitment to respecting and supporting its local community and stakeholders. A crucial element of this involves actively monitoring and adapting to the trends shaping the contemporary world or community and is built by collaborative (social) entrepreneurs who embrace their responsibility as good citizens and act as a model for others. However, this fails to acknowledge the complex and dynamic nature of social enterprise. A responsive definition is proposed within the literature that defines it as a multifaceted change process through which social entrepreneurs offer economic inclusion and social engagement to different global community and social groups through creative, solution-orientated strategies (Halsall et al., 2020 ; Oberoi et al., 2019 ). This recent definition provides and emphasises the importance of innovation underpinning social enterprise.

Contemporary social enterprise acquires a new significance that focusses upon providing innovative approaches to address pressing social needs and challenges reflected by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as poverty, inclusion, disparity, environmental degradation, gender equality, access to healthcare, social welfare and education, and innovative solutions all embracing the notion of social justice. Joining innovative thinking with well-designed innovative solutions will enable new ways of mitigating multifaceted problems to emerge. Social entrepreneurs are the altruistic, solutions-orientated, forward-thinking characters that develop social enterprises to go beyond short-term solutions and place emphasis on creating enduring solutions that address root causes of problems. Social entrepreneurs ensure, and by their very nature emphasise and firmly embed collaboration, co-participation, and partnership working. When developing an enterprise, they bring on key participants; for example, government agencies, non-profits organisations, industries, and communities are enlisted along with actual and potential beneficiaries, all working together towards shared goals. This collaborative alliance improves the efficiency, scalability, and sustainability of the innovation in a collegial approach that embraces entrepreneurial methods to design solution and encourage imaginative thinking. By applying business principles to social and environmental challenges, they foster innovation, adaptability, and creativity.

Social enterprises aim to be financially sustainable while concurrently creating social impact. They advance business models that make revenue through the sale of goods or services, reducing reliance on external funding sources. Distinctly, social enterprises empower people and groups by providing prospects for economic participation, skills development, and social inclusion. They often prioritise marginalised groups, permitting them to become dynamic givers to the social order and agents of change, while leveraging resources like human capital, technology, networks, and funding. The collaborative approach maximises the collective impact of efforts and has the potential to energise systemic change by challenging existing systems and structures and is able to provide a full spectrum of activities, ranging from conventional to hybrid organisations, serving as a catalyst for broader societal transformation.

How are social enterprises legally defined?

Unsurprisingly, the term ‘social enterprise’ is not commonly used in legal frameworks, policies, or literature; consequently, this lack of direct terminology poses a significant challenge for social enterprises. However, several countries do recognise new forms of entrepreneurship that align with the concept of social enterprise. De jure social enterprises (i.e. legally recognised practice and actions) are legally recognised under specific legal frameworks that establish clear legal forms and statuses to support their development—examples include the ‘solidarity enterprise of social utility [ entreprise solidaire d’utilité sociale ]’ (ESUS) in France, the ‘societal impact company’ in Luxembourg, and the ‘social cooperative’ in Poland—whereas de facto social enterprises are not legally recognised through specific social enterprise designations. However, they can still be identified based on their contributions to social challenges and adopt recognised social enterprise business models.

Social enterprises can adopt various authorised arrangements and statuses that reflect their unique characteristics, including their entrepreneurial and economic approaches, societal goals, and comprehensive governance and ownership structures (OECD, 2022 ). In a strict legal context, social enterprises represent an operational archetype (Caire & Tadjudje, 2019 ) reflected by the social cultural context in which they operate and those challenges the enterprise is attempting to mitigate.

While there are inconsistencies on legal definitions of social enterprises there are some key facets that are fundamental to the nature of social enterprises.

A corporate business model generates profit solely for owners and keeps operational for cost benefit deliberation and need to obtain other ventures in line with the principles of the business. However, the social enterprise model creates value not just for the business but is driven by social and environmental impact. Legal frameworks stipulate that social enterprises must explicitly pursue a defined social objective, and some nations limit the notion of flexibility and responsiveness by defining the arenas of engagement in which social enterprises are expected to function. For example, in Luxembourg, societal impact companies must respond to at least one pre-defined area of a 2016 Law on Societal Impact Companies (European Commission, 2020 ). Similarly, in Italy, the 1991 Italian Law on Social Cooperatives requires entities to be operational in at least one sector in an A-list of activities (well-being care, conservation protection, and improvement of cultural heritage) or B-list activities (organisations that conduct entrepreneurial activity oriented to job inclusion of underprivileged or disabled workers/individuals, irrespective of the area or areas) (OECD, 2022 ). Furthermore, some nations’ social enterprises are required to implement an asset lock to ensure their long-term social purpose and prioritise social impact in decision-making. The asset lock typically involves two mechanisms: restricting or limiting profit distribution to owners and ensuring that any surplus upon dissolution is transferred to a similar initiative. For instance, in the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, and Luxembourg, social enterprises are asked to maintain a limited asset or full asset lock in order to safeguard the longevity of the social purpose and clearly prioritise social impact within decision-making processes alongside a reproducible audit of decision-making processes (Fici 2015 ). In addition, there are defined limitations on the amount of profit that can be redistributed to the owners or staff within the social enterprise. A distinct component of some legal frameworks that enhance the spirit of social enterprise is the notion of inclusive governance. Some legal frameworks require the workforce to be part of the decision-making process within a social enterprise and for this to be clearly defined and auditable. For example, within France it is obligatory to involve stakeholders in some company choices (OECD, 2022 ).

Social enterprises are organisations that take diverse legal forms across nations to pursue both social and economic goals with an entrepreneurial spirit. From a global perspective, there a set of key commercial and societal fundamentals that can be used to define social enterprises:

Social enterprises are distinct from orthodox for-profit organisations which are outrightly involved in the production and/or sale of goods and services (instead of chiefly advice-giving or grant-giving occupations);

Social enterprises are designed and fulfilled by groups of citizens and community members;

Social enterprises typically sell products and/or deliver services to members of the public and private users to produce their revenues;

Social enterprises operate in the monetary economy, and use non-commercial resources to become sustainable and;

They share a social dimension in their entrepreneurial goals, which should be based on a distinct social interest and based on unmet needs or presented and established within a legislative model (OECD, 2022 ).

Social entrepreneurship and social enterprises have existed for decades (John et al., 2024 ). The development and advent of social enterprise have taken diverse routes in different geographic areas in the world but can still be grouped according to two foremost schools of thought. One is the market-based or commercial social enterprise arrangement, and the second is more of a blended or hybrid-based form of social enterprise. The market-based formula emerged prominently in North America and Africa, while the hybrid-based plan was adopted more in European and Latin American countries. Haarich et al. ( 2020 ) propose that legal frameworks can be an authoritative tool to foster and bolster social enterprise expansion and, where these are in place, social impact is more accurately measured.

The recent report published by the European Commission ( 2020 ) identifies approximately 397 000 social enterprises among European Union member states. For example, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Hungary have over 1,600 social enterprises per million residents, while Estonia, Malta, and Greece have much less than 500 (European Commission, 2020 ). In comparison, India has around 2,000,000 social enterprises and the UK 100,000 (John  et al., 2024 ). However, this data does need to be reviewed with caution. As illustrated, there are numerous descriptions of the nature of social enterprise and inconsistencies in legal recognition for social enterprises between nations and regions.

Nonetheless, governments are increasingly looking towards external agencies to solve social and economic problems in society (Khan & Halsall, 2017 ; Oberoi et al., 2021 ). Globally, an era of social enterprise is gaining momentum and is prevalent in many debates within businesses, society, and educational institutions. However, for this to progress in an informed and systematic way, there is need for a strategic realignment of policy with key social enterprise dimensions that will be shaped by five factors:

Political Environment: The administration’s role significantly influences the emergence of social enterprises. When societal issues align with administrative priorities, natural synergies arise, especially in the context of the neoliberal paradigm.

Legal Environment: Like traditional private enterprises, social enterprises require an iterative process of refining knowledge and execution. A supportive legal environment—one that avoids excessive regulation and unwarranted oversight—facilitates this progression.

Social Environment: Favourable social and cultural conditions are essential for nurturing social entrepreneurs. A strong civil society and focus on socio-economic challenges contribute to the development of social enterprises.

Cultural Environment: The enthusiasm of civil society plays a crucial role in the rise of social enterprise. Often, social entrepreneurs emerge from within civil society, responding to socio-economic issues with innovative approaches.

Institutional Environment: To advance social enterprises from emergence to maturity, institutional support is critical. Curricula in academic institutions can prepare novice social entrepreneurs with knowledge and networks.

Despite the challenges in defining the nature and legal basis of social enterprises, they undoubtedly play a vital role in addressing social, economic, and environmental challenges. Applying this observation to the Indian context, there are four key issues that run concurrently with these factors that demand the realignment of policy and social enterprise dimensions:

The legal status of social enterprises is not clearly defined, generating issues with credibility and authenticity, which in turn undermine the development of policy and strategy.

Regarding sustainability, governments must foster an environment that encourages social entrepreneurship and innovation. India (not is isolation) faces a distinct challenge in this area.

The review of literature reveals that social enterprise in India lacks a comprehensive policy framework for understanding the complexities of the phenomenon and its determinants.

There are no clear-cut guidelines of how to improve and enhance social enterprise activities across the nation. The distribution of social enterprise is geographically inconsistent.

Methodological approach to the research

This research is positioned within broader literature on social innovation and its policy relevance. Even though social innovation is not a novel concept, the application of social innovation as a policy idea and its relationship to the restructuring of the prevailing welfare establishment is synonymous with the development of social enterprise.

Embracing the spirit of social innovation was a key feature of the methodological approach adopted in this study. The involvement of partners, prospective partners, and actual and potential beneficiaries is essential to reflect the philosophical basis of social enterprise and to provide a cross cultural and social representation of each community as part of the research and evaluation process. This will provide the firm foundation towards enabling the attainment of the study’s objectives. This study utilised an embedded a case study approach, drawing upon the approach illustrated by Yin ( 2018 ).

The case study approach is used when evaluating and exploring the nature of underlying issues with reference to an identified phenomenon (Robson & McCartan, 2016 ; Yin, 2018 ). The case study approach is the most appropriate to explore the underlying factors perceived to influence a key phenomenon under investigation and is particularly useful when the phenomenon is an under-researched subject. This approach was particularly suited to this study as it reflects the emerging and contemporary phenomenon of social enterprise, enabling the development of an explanation and the exploration of the causal relationships of underlying determinants influencing the development of social enterprise (Robson & McCartan, 2016 ). This enabled the detailed exploration of those factors that influence the determinants of social enterprise and its flexibility; it also allowed the perceptions of participants to be included, and this flexible research design enabled the researchers to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the subject studied in context. A case study effectively addresses the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of events, experiences, phenomena, and data collected in the process, each crucial features of this research. Enabling the researchers to gather information, understand processes, and explore reasons, and thereby facilitating effective and deeper understanding of the various facets of social enterprise and policy development within the Indian context.

Specifically, the research team adopted a mixed methods and exploratory embedded multiple case study design approach proposed by Yin ( 2018 ) was utilised as this specifically offers an insight to the micro-cultural and socio-economic and political influences upon policy development. It is this aspect of the case study that resonates with the aspirations of the study, referring, as Yin asserts, to multiple sources of evidence enables researchers to capture the perspectives of different data sets and participants, focussing on how their different meanings illuminates new perspectives (Yin, 2018 ) is appropriate for the research.

Conceptual framework

The following illustrates the processes that were undertaken to establish a model of change to promote an understanding of the policy framework, the role, forms, practice, and value of learning within social enterprise, and how this could contribute to the development of a policy framework for innovation and social enterprise in India. The model comprises a four-step cyclical process that involves assessment, solutions-orientated problem solving, implementation, and reflection and evaluation (Snowden et al., 2023a ):

Assessment—comprises a holistic method of data collection from all available sources. For the purpose of this study, this involved:

Semi-structured and focus interviews of key beneficiaries (actual and potential) and stakeholders, e.g. NGOs, statutory agencies, community members, social entrepreneurs, and representative of social enterprise groups and agencies.

A desk top review using a systematic method to assess existing research, policy, and curriculum documentation for information relevant to parameters of this study.

Online survey of actual beneficiaries and stakeholders, e.g. NGOs, statutory agencies, community members, social entrepreneurs, and representative of social enterprise groups and agencies.

Solutions-orientated problem solving—involves the development and design of recommendations and solutions to problems and challenges identified from data collected in the assessment phase.

Implementation—is an active phase delivering the solutions to the research questions presented. This stage involved: an initial dissemination of findings; peer review; design of recommendations, strategy materials, and policy based on the evaluation and analysis of data collected.

Reflection and evaluation—this required holistic evaluation and testing in addition to harnessing the reflective elements of Kirkpatrick’s model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016 ).

Data collection and analysis

The following methods were used for the data collection:

Document review

Document review within this study includes all publicly available policy, curriculum, and practice documents. The purpose of performing document analysis is to inquire in what ways and to what extent literature is presented and if it is visibly accurate and representative. A systematic approach was used to frame the document review. Documents included specific guidelines aimed exclusively at social enterprises and those additionally associated more broadly towards social enterprise, social innovation, and allied fields such as small and medium enterprise (SME) policy, and policy intents and achievements/failures each within the context of India. The data collected were used to inform and provide a meticulous summary of available data in relation to the research question and objectives of the study. Prior to analysis, data that met the criteria for the study were analysed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool approach. Using content analysis (Krippendorff, 2019 ) enabled inferences to be developed regarding the content within the texts analysed.

Online survey

An online questionnaire was developed to identify those key features of social enterprise that have been influenced or constrained by developments and policies within India. Each of the questions was developed by data identified in the literature review and in consultation with the research team. The purposive sample included key beneficiaries (actual and potential) and stakeholders, e.g. NGOs, statutory agencies, community members, social entrepreneurs, and representative of social enterprise groups and agencies within India. Overall measures of the importance of the different dimensions of influence were calculated using the descriptive statistical method ‘relative importance index’ (Robson & McCartan, 2016 ), and free-text responses were analysed using content analysis.

The interview method is highly recommended when the focus of the study is to explore the meaning associated with a particular phenomenon (Robson & McCartan, 2016 ). For the purpose of this study, semi-structured interviews and semi-structured focus groups were conducted. Interview questions were informed by the literature/desk top review, the results of the online survey, and agreed within the research team. While semi-structured interviews were considered to be the most appropriate method for data collection, as this enabled the curation of views on the perspectives explored, to enhance the credibility and replicability of the study, focus groups were also conducted. This dual approach to collecting qualitative data allowed within the focus groups a sense of greater security, where the group dynamic allowed participants to build on one another's responses and generate ideas that they might not have thought of in an individual interview. Furthermore, the strategy of conducting the focus groups first provided the opportunity to follow up issues and perspectives into more detail from a single perspective.

In evaluative studies, the quality of the information collated is dependent upon the quality of the interview process; to ensure consistency, an interview guide was developed using the principles of PROMPT (Open University, 2024 ) and key suppositions based on the experiences and wisdom of the participants and available literature. This exercise contributed to the validity and credibility of the data collection tools within the evaluative framework (Robson & McCartan, 2016 ). Purposive sampling was used to conduct a series of 34 interviews and 14 focus group interviews. Data collected from both focus groups and interviews were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006 ), transcribed verbatim, coded, and used to analyse similar and comparative themes or patterns to establish key findings.

Results from the survey

The survey posed 10 key questions:

Question 1: What is the scope of social entrepreneurship, especially in a price sensitive market like India ?

The responses (65%) indicate that many feel the scope for social enterprises is huge but that new social enterprises face fundraising challenges. Market competition hinders the growth of social enterprises and catering to Indian market. 50% of the respondents suggested that social enterprises need to price their products/services at a cheaper cost than competitors but this leads to issues with sustainability.

Question 2: Do you see a growing trend in inclination towards social enterprises among Indian youth?

Generally, the participants (70%) perceived that the youth is generally more aware about the environmental and social issues, and are able to understand the role of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. Participants suggested that there is a sense of responsibility in the younger generation and imply that this group is more innovative and environmentally conscious, so they are more aware of the social enterprise concept as it blends social and economic strategy to respond to social challenges.

Question 3: Are there any incentives and schemes by the Indian and state governments to encourage social enterprise?

Many participants (75%) expressed that, over the past 10 years, the government has been encouraging and continues to encourage social innovation, technological solutions, and a number of schemes have been announced during the past decade to support young entrepreneurs, such as Avishay Capita, Atal Innovation Mission, Support for International Patent Protection in Electronics & Information Technology (SIP-EIT), National Skill Development Corporation, Start-Up India Programme, MeitY Start-up Hub, Start-Up India, and the Stand-Up India Scheme.

Question.5: What could the government or society do to encourage social entrepreneurship?

The respondents had many suggestions that could be taken up by the government and society to encourage and promote social entrepreneurship in the country:

The provision of incentives and financial aid to new social enterprises.

Launching courses and education programmes in schools and universities to raise awareness regarding the concept of social entrepreneurship.

Setting up incubation centres and innovation centres across the country.

The provision of tax benefits to new social enterprises, at least in their initial years.

People, as a society, need to support small-scale social enterprises over large-scale manufacturing houses who are able to provide goods and services at lower costs.

Question 6: What are the main barriers to the development of social entrepreneurship in India?

The overwhelming response was that issues linked to funding are the most critical barrier. There is also lack of awareness among participants about how to harness support for innovative ideas; educational institutions have not been teaching social enterprise courses, and complex regulatory frameworks and bureaucratic procedures are significant barriers in conjunction with a lack of skill and capability development programmes and capacity building. Some participants highlighted that they had opportunities provided by a local university; however, these were not experienced by all.

Question 7: Should the concept of social entrepreneurship and innovation be incorporated into the education curricula?

The response was distinct; it was clear that the participants viewed universities as having a role in challenging the old paradigms of business schools that prioritise profit maximisation. Higher education institutions (HEIs) were viewed by some as engaging with the social enterprise sector in order to discover sustainable solutions for concerns around economic and social disparity and justice. However, this was found to be regionally disparate. All participants agreed that universities should be promoting knowledge and understanding of social enterprise.

Question 8: Do you think the concept of social enterprise requires additional skill development training programmes in higher education settings?

Universities were perceived as income generators within a local community, and most importantly, are seen as a hub between different institutions (public, private, and non-government organisations). Each participant commented that additional skills are needed to fulfil the role of the social entrepreneur.

Question 9: Is the emergence of social enterprise a potential alternative development channel to rapidly shifting Indian policies?

Rich and uniform answers were provided as a response to this question. Participants viewed the growth of social enterprise as significant over recent years. In particular, uniformly they viewed social enterprise as demonstrating spectacular growth in India, with the country being referred to as ‘a social enterprise superpower’ by Think, a social action think-tank and action hub, as well as ‘a hotbed for social enterprise’ by Beyond Profit magazine, a leading social enterprise magazine. Social enterprises have been extremely effective in driving development in India, which is home to one of the world’s largest populations still living in poverty.

Question 10: Indian Social enterprises are very active but operate as NGOs, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or foundations, in the absence of any legal definition that could form a basis for policy dialogue. Do you agree with this?

In spite of India having a legal form that closely mirrors the social enterprise model, 80% of the survey respondents reported that they operate as private limited

companies and they find the lack of legal clarity a huge hurdle. There is growing diversity in the way social enterprises are being registered, with participants commenting that this lack of clarity dilutes their social mission.

Findings from the literature review

The survey findings mirrored what was found within the literature. Social enterprises are perceived as positive change agents; they offer the latest methodologies, innovative solutions, and novel conceptual frameworks. Social enterprises attend to social issues and support marginalised and disadvantaged people by developing innovative community-centred methods to resolve challenging issues. Many understand social enterprise as a transformational trend in the progression towards making standard for-profit enterprises that change themselves to generate social value. Opuni et al. ( 2022 ) present the view that, in a local community context, social enterprises create opportunities and can have a real impact in the geographical area (e.g. in tackling poverty, and in employment, education, and environmental issues).

While reviewing the literature, government programmes, and policy supporting the social enterprise sector were found to be too recent to provide evidence of long-term impact. However, there are early results from adaptations to selected local contexts in developing countries that can inform policy design for those governments that are considering the social enterprise agenda as part of their strategy to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indian social enterprises are very active but operate chiefly as NGOs, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or foundations. Enterprises operate in the absence of legal definitions or even a commonly shared operational definition that could form the basis for policy dialogue among the various stakeholders. Nonetheless, India has commenced a policy dialogue around the social enterprise sector and has recently adapted policy sections that provide a vehicle for engaging with social entrepreneurs. A special social enterprise section has been included within the Enterprise Policy, adopted in 2015 by the Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship. It provides 14 definitions and specifies forms of support for social enterprises, which includes higher education courses, fiscal incentives for social investment, incubation, grassroots technology hubs, and engagement on innovation with existing entities such as the National Innovation Foundation. Despite the government promoting an ecosystem to encourage social business, impact investment, and social enterprises, the on-the-ground realities of running a social venture remain daunting. However, these changes are pointing to a bright future for India's social entrepreneurship scene.

With an estimated two million social enterprises in India, it is one of the most dynamic social entrepreneurship environments globally. In their 12th Five Year Plan (2012–2017), the Government of India ( 2011 ) accorded priority to Bottom-of-the-Pyramid (Bop) focussed enterprises and social good ventures by declaring the period between 2010 and 2020 as the ‘decade of innovation’. The government is committed to helping social enterprises in capacity building by investing seed capital through a fund called the India Inclusive Innovation Fund (IIIF) in areas of healthcare, energy, urban infrastructure, water, and transportation. IIIF has been capitalised to INR 5000 crores (USD 780 million) and was to be allocated to social enterprises over the 10-year period starting 2010; 20% of a social venture’s funds came from this fund while the remaining 80% will have to come from private investors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly highlighted the critical significance of strengthening systems and building resilience across communities—principally among those living in severe scarcity and who are most at risk during these major disruptions. A social innovation approach puts competence to harness innovation at the hub of community solution orientate problem solving. However, this necessitates a distributed and dispersed arrangement where innovation and social enterprise connects through networks. Halsall et al.( 2020 ) assert that in addition to developing the traditional learner-teacher relationship, pedagogical restructuring needs to take place in regard to social entrepreneurial skill development and that this should take two forms: (1) changes in the curriculum, and (2) changes in the techniques of teaching and learning. The illustration by Snowden et al. ( 2023a , 2023b , 2023c ) presents a conceptualisation of this remodelling of enterprise education, which is developing at various levels globally, as illustrated by the UK—the India Research Initiative ( 2019 ) annual report, the Developing Inclusive Creative Economies (DICE) ( 2019 ), and the British Council ( 2016 ).

Two projects illustrate how this remodelling is influencing the development of social enterprise. The first is a collaborative project between Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, and the University of Huddersfield. This project formed a collaboration and works in partnership with several stakeholders, including new and existing social enterprises, and has developed a series of educational tools and packages that have advanced social enterprise within a number of different contexts. The second example is the Tamil Nadu Polytechnic College, Madurai, India, project. The aim of this project was to promote the use of ICT and smart classrooms to enhance teaching and learning. This project achieved success via a 30% improvement in teaching materials, a 40% increase in staff using integrated teaching methods, a 40% increase in acquisition of knowledge outside traditional sources of information, and a 10% overall increase in academic performance. Undoubtedly, a symbiotic relationship must develop between social enterprise to be successful, and indeed for HEIs to fulfil their role successfully.

The following assumptions were made about what policy is potentially relevant to social enterprises:

Policies or programmes affecting or targeting SMEs have the potential to include some social enterprises.

Policies and plans influencing organisation registering and governance of organisations and enterprises have the potential to influence social enterprise, given that they register in multiple forms.

Policies or programmes targeting low income and disadvantaged groups in terms of improving their livelihoods and/or access to social services have the potential to influence some social enterprises.

Policies or strategies deliberating financial growth, industrial expansion, sector-level development, or social development have the potential to affect social enterprises.

Qualitative findings

The results from focus group discussions bring out common concerns that were reflected and emphasised by further probing in the individual interviews, reaffirming the reliability of the findings. Participants expressed the consistent view that the social enterprise situation in India has changed considerably in recent years and was dynamic in response to societal trends. The participants were asked about the major objectives for setting up a social enterprise. The most frequently specified aim of social enterprises in the focus group discussions was generating employment (70% of participants), followed by social inclusion (45% of participants), improving health (40% of participants), protecting the environment (40% of participants), addressing social exclusion (40% of participants), supporting agriculture and allied activities (36%), empowering women (35%), promoting education (40% of participants), and supporting vulnerable groups (23% of participants).

At present, though the Indian government has supported social entrepreneurs there are still substantial funding challenges, meaning they often fail to secure start-up capital. There are a limited number of financial institutions that lend financial support to social entrepreneurs, as they hold a misconception that these organisations are not profitable. Participants were invited to propose how social entrepreneurship could be improved, the data collected identified three themes:

Enhancing and expanding research and education on social enterprise and social economy in schools and universities, which might help to develop both local knowledge and the talent pipeline.

Encouraging private and public procurement channels to be more inclusive, enabling the procurement of services and goods from social enterprises that impart social and environmental value.

The creation of incentives for funding and investment.

It is evident from each data set that there are significant growth plans for social enterprise; for example: the majority of surveyed social enterprises is looking to enlarge their scope, reach new areas, and increase their customer base by developing new products and services. A disturbing observation notable in both the literature review and commentary from participants was the barrier associated with recruitment. The foremost recruitment challenge was perceived to be finding and retaining junior to mid-level talent, with a lack of awareness and understanding of social enterprise identified as key contributory features. Respondents were asked during the interview discussions about funding and finance they have received since they started operating. The nature of funds received primarily consist of funding from the government; endowments from foundations; indentures from the government; fees, sales, and charges; and aids—cash and in-kind (e.g. apparatus, volunteer time, etc.). The nature of finance received comprised of: capital grants; concessional loans (loans with below-market interest rates); commercial finances (market interest rate loans); and equity or equity-like investments. Of the respondents surveyed, 40% count on grants from foundations, and 28% of social enterprises got funds from philanthropists and charities; capital grants (24%); commercial loans (27%); funding from government schemes (25%); contracts from governments (18%); and concessional advances lower than the market rate (14%).

There is a significant variance between the funding of social enterprises and conventional commercial organisations. Of the social enterprises surveyed, 40 faced difficulties gaining access to investors due to inadequate networks. This was significant in some areas, where support establishments are rare and social enterprises are limited. For example, there is significant social enterprise presence in Maharashtra and Karnataka as compared to Utter Pradesh or North East states. Nearly 30% of the social enterprises recognised a lack of access to debt/equity as a key stumbling block. New social enterprises are moving to repayable finance to establish and expand their businesses. New generation social enterprises are also tapping into diverse, non-traditional funding sources; for example: crowd funding, using social media like Facebook’s ‘internet.org;’ social loans from Milap (an online micro-lending platform); and educational institutions and consortia, etc.

An incidental issue that raised during the interviews was related to incorporation of the concepts of social entrepreneurship and innovation within high school curricula. The perception of the participants encouraged incorporation and encourage students to explore new business ventures that provide self-employment opportunities as well as enabling them to contribute to developing solutions to social problems; for example, by improving health outcomes that exploit innovative approaches. Indian social enterprises are very active but operate as NGOs small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), or foundations, and lack legal definition that could form a basis for policy dialogue. A legal definition of a social enterprise would promote a self-sustaining model that could generate the financial resources to support operations, but also to enhance scalability, develop awareness, and promote social enterprise as a career option alongside the more commonly recognised professions.

The Government of India is making positive steps towards this by promoting incentives and schemes by Indian and state governments:

The central government's Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) was established to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship throughout India. It consists of programmes that support and fund social entrepreneurs, such as Atal Incubation Centres, Atal Tinkering Labs, and Atal New India Challenges.

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) supports social entrepreneurs operating in industries like healthcare, agriculture, and renewable energy with funding and training. The NSDC focuses on skill development.

Start-Up India is a programme that intends to promote the development of new businesses, especially social enterprises. It offers advantages like tax breaks, simplified compliance procedures, and access to investment through several government-backed programmes like AIM and Fund of Funds for start-ups.

While government initiatives and schemes provide a foundation of support, additional resources and partnerships are typically necessary. There are few incentives and schemes by the governments at either national or state levels to encourage social enterprises. The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) was set up NITI Aayog in 2016, which aims to promote the innovative and entrepreneurial mindset among school and university students, and the private and MSME sectors across the nation. AIM is mandated to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India. Through Atal Incubation Centres—or AICs—at universities, institutions, and corporations, AIM is creating an ever-evolving ecosystem of start-ups and entrepreneurs. These business incubation centres aim to foster and support world-class innovations and dynamic entrepreneurs, who want to build scalable and sustainable enterprises. To date, AIM has successfully operationalised 69 AICs in 18 states and 3 Indian union territories. These AICs support incubated start-ups by providing world-class technical facilities, resource-based support, mentorship, funding support, partnerships and networking, co-working spaces, and laboratory facilities, among other modes of support. More than 2,900 start-ups have been supported by these AICs, of which 900 + start-ups are led by women and have created 30,000 + jobs in the ecosystem. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's (MEITY’s) Start-up Hub (MSH): MSH acts as a national coordination, facilitation, and monitoring centre that integrates all the incubation centres, start-ups, and innovation-related activities of MEITY, which aims to promoting technology innovation, start-ups, and the creation of intellectual property. 3. Start-Up India’s Stand-Up India scheme launched on 15 August, 2015; Start-Up India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to catalyse start-up culture and build a strong and inclusive ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India. In most cases, social enterprises do need external aid, whether in the form of capital or mentorship, mostly due to lack of education about the concept and lack of financial aid schemes.

The Indian government has announced policies and 63 incentives, such as the AIM and Start-Up India schemes, to support social entrepreneurship. The UK has a vigorous legal framework for social enterprises, with the Community Interest Company (CIC) structure explicitly intended for them. The UK government has executed numerous policies and programmes, including the Social Value Act and Social Investment Tax Relief, to endorse and support social enterprises. Funding and Investment: India: Impact investment and social finance in India are rising, but access to investment for social enterprises can still be challenging, particularly for early-stage ventures. Old-style funding sources, such as banks and venture capitalists, have limited exposure to the social enterprise sector.

India has seen the emergence of incubators, accelerators, and support organisations focussed on social entrepreneurship. These organisations provide mentoring, networking opportunities, and capacity-building programmes for social enterprises. However, the ecosystem is still evolving and expanding. Nonetheless, India's social enterprise sector is growing rapidly, and the government is increasingly recognising and supporting social entrepreneurship. With the right policies and support, India has the potential to further strengthen its social enterprise ecosystem and increase its impact. A much-neglected area, as highlighted in this study, is the importance of education—in particular, the role that higher education institutions can play.

Recent studies (Halsall et al., 2022b ; Snowden et al., 2023b , 2023c ) highlight the value of delivering a curriculum that will develop the key skills and qualities of a social entrepreneur. Halsall et al. ( 2022b ) and Snowden et al. ( 2023b ) present six components of a proposed social entrepreneurship curriculum and recommend that they should be delivered within a heutagogical approach. The six characteristics include:

Institutions—structures of rules and norms that develop social change in society. In this context, an institution is a personal business, governmental, or education establishment. Here, institutions are, overall, seen to have an important effect on citizens in society.

Stakeholders—key individuals and organisations contributing to social enterprise, for example this may include: learners, i.e. those who want to learn the skills associated with social enterprise; educators, i.e. those who ‘teach’ or facilitate learning about social enterprise; entrepreneurs, i.e. those who are contributing to society and developing social enterprise.

Teaching and Learning—a process whereby the learner gains skills and understanding.

Personal Skills and Capability—a framework for skills and knowledge growth from a social entrepreneur development perspective.

Curriculum—centrally driven by knowledge, practices, and critical engagement.

Work Placement—a period in which the learner can experience expertise in the employment or specific sector they want to enter.

The data collected from the study also demonstrate that despite the importance of social enterprise in society, students are still studying theories as opposed to acquiring practical skills. Hence, there is an urgent need to encourage students to learn by doing, and to develop an understanding of how to collaborate and engage with each other to address social problems. As emphasised by Halsall et al. ( 2022a , 2022b ), engagement can only take place if the stakeholders, both actual and perceived, engage in the transformational process, providing opportunities to acquire the capability and skills through work-based learning and internship opportunities alongside constructive mentorship are offered.

However, education must also take place in practice. Strengthening of the emerging social enterprise ecosystem is achieved by:

The development of capacity building and entrepreneurship support. Developing entrepreneurship and incubation programmes that focus on social enterprise development; the provision of training, mentorship, and technical assistance to social entrepreneurs is key to this.

The promotion of partnerships between academic institutions, incubators, and industry experts to offer specialised courses and programmes on social entrepreneurship and social innovation would develop social entrepreneurs’ capability, skills, and knowledge base.

Encouragement of a community of praxis via the development of support networks and platforms that facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and peer learning among social entrepreneurs and innovators.

While from a more strategic viewpoint this ecosystem can be strengthened by:

The introduction of policies that promote social enterprise and that encourage social procurement by encouraging government agencies and corporations to prioritise procurement from social enterprises rather than multinational corporations. This should include the simplification and creation of transparent procedures that allow social enterprises to access government tenders and contracts, providing them with fair opportunities to compete. Encourage corporations to include social enterprises in their supply chains and foster partnerships between social enterprises and private sector entities.

Impact Measurement and Reporting: The development of standardised frameworks and guidelines for the measurement and reporting of social impact, ensuring consistency and comparability across social enterprises. Support and training should be provided to social enterprises to build their capacity in impact assessment, monitoring, and evaluation, and the adoption of impact measurement tools and technologies should be encouraged to enhance accountability and transparency.

Collaboration and knowledge-sharing platforms should be established to connect social enterprises, government bodies, academia, civil society organisations, and traditional businesses to create a robust social innovation ecosystem. Dedicated social innovation centres and incubation hubs should be established across the country, providing physical spaces, mentorship, and networking opportunities for social entrepreneurs.

Research and development in social innovation should be promoted, with the support of partnerships between universities, research institutions, and social enterprises to enable them to address pressing social challenges.

Implementing these policy suggestions can create an enabling environment for social enterprises and social innovation in India, driving inclusive economic growth and sustainable development while addressing critical social and environmental issues.

The development and agreement of a uniformed legal framework for social enterprise development will consolidate the approach to social enterprise and promote sustainability. There is a consistent view demonstrated within the study’s findings that a legal framework will benefit social enterprise growth. The espousal of legal frameworks typically indicates that social enterprises are significant to establishments. In countries where legal frameworks for social enterprises were introduced, they have been beneficial both socially and economically. A clearly defined characterisation that is widely accepted provides structure, clarity, and additional authority as opposed to a working definition that produces de facto social enterprises. The design of a clear and uniform policy also helps to promote the identity of the social entrepreneur role, encouraging professionalisation. An enhanced and improved empathetic view of what social enterprises mean and how they function regarding funders and establishments will contribute to sustainability and advancement of the discipline.

Conclusion and recommendations

This paper provides an exploration of the issues associated with the integration of social policy dimensions into social entrepreneurship education and makes the following recommendations:

The Indian government should implement measures to foster a supportive environment by utilising suitable legal and fiscal tools. This would encourage MSMEs to transition from the unorganised to the organised sector and promote their corporatization. Furthermore, the government should stimulate higher investments in innovative and knowledge-based ventures, as well as in research and development, by enhancing collaborations between industry and academic institutions.

The social enterprise ecosystem will continue to grow rapidly and will attract interested stakeholders. Social enterprise has the potential to address societal needs, and it will bring a positive impact to society.

The social enterprise ecosystem in India operates in an unorganised fashion. It needs a platform for communicating social and economic values and to leverage business opportunities.

To streamline and establish institutional structure for standard setting and the measurement of impact.

Social enterprises in India need to develop a managerial framework that can be adapted to offer guidance to new and emerging social entrepreneurs. This could help to cut the number of errors new social entrepreneurs make and enable them to manage their organisations in a more professional manner.

There is immense potential to link social enterprise to corporate social responsibility. Social enterprises can avail numerous benefits apart from funding if policy regarding corporate social responsibility is streamlined in a coherent manner.

Furthermore, to provide support at a fundamental level, the government should aim to set up a technical advisory team whose role is to mentor emerging social enterprises and provide them with guidelines on registration, funding, management, business, networking, expansion, collaboration, and innovation. The necessity for an all-in-one, exclusive social enterprise policy in India is clear; it would act as a singular source of wisdom, guiding approaches and providing solutions to many of the issues that occur frequently in social enterprise operations.

While this research has significant limitations, it paints a common and consistent picture of the key determinants of social enterprise. Social enterprises are attracting increasing research and academic consideration around the world. By implementing supportive policies, governments can create a sustainable ecosystem that nurtures social entrepreneurship and contributes to inclusive and sustainable development.

Policymakers need to develop a clear understanding of why, when, and how to regulate social enterprises and the impact that legislation (or lack thereof) can have for their development. The need for regulation for social enterprises is context-based: motives and outcomes of legal frameworks reflect local conditions, which means that what works within the broader legal and regulatory frameworks of one country may not in another and vice versa. Legal frameworks may provide recognition and visibility, as well as access to financial incentives and support, to markets, and to support services that facilitate starting, developing, and growing social enterprises.

Higher education increasingly requires institutions to evidence their worth and address the issue of employability within the curriculum. Traditionally, the focus is largely on young undergraduates who are studying full time and preparing for their first job. However, students enrolled on higher education courses within further and higher education institutions are not primarily concerned with their ability to get that first job, but their ability to keep their current job and/or progress on to the next job. Current employability strategies are concerned with generic skill development. Drawing upon a student centred approach to learning, drawing upon the principles of heutagogy, that focuses upon the development of a social entrepreneurial skill set and related capabilities is required.

Social enterprises are promoted as a solution to the socio-economic challenges posed to the challenges presented of the post-COVID-19 pandemic world. The innovative use of entrepreneurial skills and spirit to address social issues, though not a new concept, surpasses traditional frameworks and is essential for meeting the evolving demands of the modern world. To ensure equality and parity, society today demands that graduates develop new skills, abilities, and knowledge that are responsive to the challenges of the day—i.e. that they become an individual who is able to create social value by generating innovative solutions through a process of social entrepreneurship.

This paper illustrates that social enterprise is complex and dynamic; it is a multifaceted change process through which social entrepreneurs offer economic inclusion and social engagement to different global communities and social groups through creative, solution-orientated strategies (Halsall et al., 2022b ; Snowden et al., 2021a , 2021b ; Oberoi et al., 2018 ). The global community sits on a on a fulcrum; societal and global challenges are distinct and reflect the pervasive inequalities within global society, a response to the needs of today’s dynamic global society is demanded, and social enterprise provides a resolution to these challenges. The recent statement by the United Nations issued in Spring 23 (Unted Nations 2023 ) reaffirms this and calls for global institutions and nations to enable the development of social entrepreneurship skills and capabilities to meet the goals of Sustainable Development Goals.

These include social inequality and injustice, public health, and socio-environmental issues as they present in society, and distinctly, the manner in which the issues empower communities and groups locally, nationally, and globally. Indubitably, the development of a ‘new’ curriculum to develop must be achieved within a cross-disciplinary framework that is both global and hauntological in nature. It is clear that the emerging social enterprise curriculum should be multifaceted and complex, like the concept itself; this would, therefore, enable the learning experience to be dynamic and context specific, and ensure that the needs of the social entrepreneur, community, and society are met by the training provider in the form of the higher education institution.

There is a significant opportunity for policy leaders to shape the future of Indian society. Key to this is the development and adoption of a clear policy to enable social entrepreneurs to fulfil their potential. However, to support this development, opportunities must be realised in relation to learning, and can be developed via the teaching and learning curriculum in terms of skills and development. Without the adoption of a clear pedagogic model to support policy development, the realisation of social enterprise will not be achieved.

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Acknowledgements

This paper would not have been possible without the inputs from various social entrepreneurs and directors of social enterprises and CISE students, particularly our research assistant Adarsh Sachan from KMC, who helped us to carry out focus group discussions and data collection. A special thank you to those who took time out of their busy schedules to share their entrepreneurial journeys with us.

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Snowden, M., Towns-Andrews, L., Halsall, J.P. et al. Integrating social policy dimensions into entrepreneurship education: a perspective from India. Entrep Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-024-00125-6

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Darwinians at the gate: Sustainability, innovation and growth at DSM

For Feike Sijbesma, CEO of Royal DSM since 2007, rapid changes were normal as major trends were playing out. Global population swelled, the balance of wealth shifted, often increasing disparities and inequalities, while human beings remained hooked on using more resources than the planet could handle or replace. As early as 2010, DSM formulated a strategy to build on its strength in Life and Materials Sciences, capitalizing on what it saw as the most promising global megatrends, notably health & wellness, global shifts and energy & climate change. At DSM, sustainability went way beyond complying with laws and regulations: It was a key driver for innovation and a core value for the firm. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007 and the ensuing recession, cost concerns came back to the forefront, pushing the sustainability agenda to the back. The sense of urgency on environmental and social issues was gone, so how could you convince people a totally different approach to doing business was needed? Could sustainability really be turned into an effective driver for innovation and ultimately improve a company’s profitability? Were the three bottom lines – financial, social and environmental – really mutually self-reinforcing, instead of mutually exclusive? Proving the case to some still-reluctant financial investors could prove difficult. For DSM, the ultimate challenge to its broad-based sustainability agenda was quite clear: Could a case be made for sustainability as a key driver of value creation over the long term?

Sustainability as driver of innovation and growth, CSR in action, corporate venturing, sustainability strategies, growth management, portfolio management.

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