Design Thinking

What is Design Thinking, and how can it help a brand/business?

Design Thinking is a management tool that persistently helps evolve, innovate and outpace change to cruise across choppy business scenarios. It is a human-centric way of solving business problems using the power of design. Think of it as an easy way to solve complex business problems. 

            Why Design Thinking is the best way forward?

• 10% of the Fortune 500 has stated that design is their No. 1 priority. -CMO.com
• 78% of design-led companies have defined a process for coming up with new digital customer experience ideas. - Adobe
• 50% of design-led companies report more loyal customers as a benefit to having advanced design practices. -Adobe

           What does it involve?

• Empathize – It all starts by learning how we can empathize with the human beings at the core of our challenge. They may be customers, employees or any other stakeholders.
• Define – Next we need to clearly define and articulate all the challenges, needs, and wants.
• Ideate – Once our challenge areas are defined, we can now explore different approaches to come up with solutions for the problem at hand.
• Prototype – Once we have a great idea, it is now time to prototype our solution and bring it to life.   
• Test – Before we implement the solution, it is important to test it and then revisit any of the earlier mentioned steps as per what we learn from every step.

            How does it help a Brand or Business?

•  It can help a company boost innovation across all departments
•  It can help enhance your culture.
• It gives you the opportunity to view problems from different perspectives to determine its root cause.
• It is an ideal process to developing deep empathy for our users to create a solution that will best match their needs.

           What is Designomics?

Designomics is VGC’s proprietary process where design thinking is used to create solutions for complex problems as a branding agency. Apart from being a knowledge and an award platform, today Designomics also forms the foundation for any strategic exercise that VGC, as a marketing agency in Mumbai and Bangalore undertakes. It also endorses the value of strategic integration of Design in Business. It started as an initiative to showcase the effectiveness of design in and for business.

Learn how you can use the power of design thinking through the Designomics workshops. Get in touch today to learn more.

  

Signs that your Brand needs a makeover

In a highly competitive market place, where trends change almost as frequently as the weather, it is important for branding companies in Bangalore & across India, to evolve with the times. There comes a time in every brand’s lifecycle where it must adapt to stay relevant.

This often involves restyling logos, colour palettes, visual language, the photographic style and strategic repositioning, amongst other things. Sometimes even the name of the organization is changed during this process. Although there is usually one leading reason for making the change, the motivation behind a rebranding project is often a combination of various factors.

Deciding whether you should rebrand or not can be difficult. Too often the red flags get lost in the hustle of our day-to-day activities. And when you do notice them, the decision to actually embark on a rebranding initiative is rarely an easy one. So, how do you know when it’s finally time to pick up the phone and call the professionals? (hint: www.vgc.in)

Here are a few signs that your brand is probably ready for an update:

Branding is all about competitive differentiation. One may often feel that their brand is lost in the sea of the marketplace sameness. Repositioning along with rebranding and capitalizing on your USP can make your brand more visible to customers who search for unique solutions.

Once amongst one of Bangalore’s most famous hotels, The Solitaire was in desperate need of a brand makeover. They were now going to be a part of an up and coming hospitality group and were going to be rolling out some never-before-seen features and facilities in the hospitality space in India. They also wanted to move up a couple of stars, as the new offering would now be a ‘4-star’ premium hotel. VGC, the best branding agency in India, created an identity & brand language that was refreshingly new for the hospitality space and helped them differentiate themselves from the competition.

It happens when the brand has changed their vision to meet the expectations of the audience. What may have seemed like a great identity 15 years ago, now no longer represents what your brand is all about. Sometimes changes are in a cultural context and can change the meaning of the brand identity.

When SPS Hospitals wanted to break away from their association with the Apollo group, and move in to bigger things (like expansion into new markets and verticals), they came to us to help them convey this change through strategic rebranding and for a campaign that conveyed the change they were going through (as healthcare can be a very sensitive space). We helped them by creating a fresh, new identity that not only reassured their audience of their expertise but also reflected their new vision.

The market price of a brand’s products or services are usually dictated by the way customers perceive a brand. This is an observation made by VGC, one of the leading branding companies in Bangalore.
If the price of your offering seems hopelessly fixed despite the rising costs of materials, then you may want to consider rebranding. By rebranding, you’ll not only be able to reshape the way your customers perceive you, but also increase the price of your offering(s) accordingly.

When Hiranandani Upscale wanted to rebrand, but still retain their luxury status and the legacy & heritage of the Hiranandani Group, VGC, the best branding agency in India, stepped into help them out. First, we suggested renaming the brand to ‘House of Hiranandani’ thereby graduating it to a brand of stature. The evolved identity, well thought-out brand architecture and launch campaign resulted in the most successful sale period the company had seen in a long time.

Trends state that over time, brands come across as outdated if they fail to adapt to what may currently be happening in the market & outside world. Your brand identity at time of inception might not necessarily be relevant ten years later. There is a constant need for change in a volatile market scenario and inconsistent consumer needs.

Dimexon takes pride on communicating that they are a contemporary and sophisticated brand that is poised for the future. But with its existing identity and communication, Dimexon was not sending out the right message to its audience. With this in mind, VGC created a new corporate identity that was striking, but also aptly modern in its minimalism and relevant for its audience. Together with the baseline ‘Tomorrow, Today’, it captured the superiority, timelessness and style of Dimexon. The identity helped the brand stand out in a cluttered industry as ‘the final word’ in quality and service.

Signs that it’s about time to rebrand can be just about anywhere. Often the first sign is that you’re wondering if a rebrand is necessary. Whatever eventually compels you to reach out to design professionals like us, you can rest assured you’re making the right decision. With the amount of measurable benefits that come with rebranding, the investment is likely to pay off many times over.

Preeti Vyas on judging the D&AD Awards - 2015

www.vgc.in  Vyas Giannetti Creative

Preeti Vyas Curates and Presents Designomics, a series on Logo for Bloomberg UTV

Designomics is a series on Logo for Bloomberg UTV, which I will curate and present from the vantage point of Indian businesses that have understood Design and its various disciplines as a vital business tool and integrated it in their growth stories.

The Design Industry is fast graduating from a boutique cottage Industry to a strategic and savvy activity, aiming to create a robust ROI for businesses through what I call, Designomics.

The Universe of Design specializations is growing vastly. It ranges from Branding to packaging, to Digital, to Furniture, Automobile, environmental and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Design as a profession is increasingly emerging out of being the afterthought, only to be brought in at the end for cosmetic beautification to being integrated into the very inception of the business process.

This is because enlightened companies have realized that strategic Design has the power to partner them in their growth and profitability.
Of course, there are innumerable international case studies, which show the success of integrating Design across key business interfaces.
But what is truly heartening is that within India too there are many illustrations of how businesses have prospered by using intelligent design in a rapidly crowded and complex marketplace.

The sheer volume of products and services operating in a single domain has risen rapidly and exponentially. As has new categories of businesses. Added to that, India has embraced scale almost overnight. Take retail for example; it went from the local Kirana to the Mall model almost overnight. Business ambitions are no longer shy. Thinking big and thinking Global is the mantra of all Indian businesses.

Against this backdrop, Designomics will bring to you vibrant stories of how diversified conglomerates, Business to business, or consumer facing companies, have added value through Design by integrating different Design specializations into key stages of their business ecology. We will track companies like Mahindra and Mahindra, Titan, and Godrej in the coming segments and see how they have practiced Designomics.

Here is a quick glimpse of what’s coming up next week. You know him as the Chairman of a large Indian multinational. Now meet Kumar Mangalam Birla as an early believer in strategic Brand Design who united a diversified conglomerate under the umbrella of a single power brand

So whether you represent a business, or are an entrepreneur, or of course are a Designer, come watch Designomics and see how you can profit from Design.

- Preeti Vyas

you can have look at the Curtain Raiser which premiered on Bloomberg UTV. here is the link to that. >>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2NBvqycdo

Cheers!