Enlightening the

dynamic capabilities of
design thinking in
fostering digital
transformation
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Research methodology

4. Empirical results

5. Discussion

6. Conclusions
 01
INTRODUCTION
 1. Introduction

How has digital technology transformed our modern society ?

The modern era is increasingly permeated by digital technologies that are transforming our
society, as they are not only at the base of many companies' products, services and
operations, but also at the root of the radical change in nature of innovations.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation has been conceptualized by Nambisan et al. as “the creation of (and
consequent change in) market offerings, business processes, or models that result from the
use of digital technology.
 1. Introduction
How can digital technology be used?

What is design thinking?

Design thinking has been proven to be an approach based on dynamic

capabilities for managing creativity and bias in innovation projects.

Design thinking impacts digital transformation

Design thinking dynamic capabilities foster the discovery of

the opportunities underlying digital technologies, thus
enacting the transformation
02 LITERATURE
REVIEW
 2. Literature review

the most essential characteristic of digital transformation is the convergence of industries and
firms that collaborate more and more thanks to digital technologies

digital technologies have introduced three qualitative changes in terms of representation,

connectivity and aggregation

a recent study unpacks a set of digital sensing, seizing and reconfiguring capabilities by showing
how dynamic capability can inform digital transformation

the literature about agile and hybrid stage-gate models showed how capabilities such as
flexibility and productivity are central in a continuous innovation
 2. Literature review
Being able to keep open the development of technology up to the very end of the project and
focus the attention on speed is essential to cope with strategic renewal and innovation

Further studies on design thinking as creative problem solving highlighted different aspects
and adopted different perspectives on processes and people

One of the most diffused frameworks describing this kind of design thinking is the double
diamond that the Design Council proposed, characterized by the alternation of divergent
phases aimed at exploring possible alternatives, called problem space, and convergent phases
aimed at identifying the dominant alternative, often called solution space

Researchers appointed how design thinking is rooted on dynamic capabilities and dynamic
capabilities are useful for digital transformation the role that design thinking dynamic
capabilities can have in digital transformation is still missing and requires more knowledge
 03
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
 3. Research methodology
3.1.Empirical setting
- Four projects undertaken by Design Group Italia,
DOING, IBM, and Triplesense Reply.
- Research subjects: insurance, public administration,
telecommunication, and energy.
- Method: theoretical and convenient sampling.
- Table 1 provides a synthetic overview of the four
projects along different dimensions: consulting
organization, clients, and project objectives.
3.2.Data collection
• There are two waves of interviews
- The first interview: focused on understanding
the main boundaries of the research
- The second interview: aimed at validating the
first intuitions and deeply investigate the
evidence gathered -> identifying the design
thinking practices adopted by the consulting
organization to capitalize on the opportunities
of digital technologies.
3.3. Data analysis
• The data analysis was based on the
interview transcripts and developed
in 4 main steps:
- Step 1: The transcription of the raw
data collected during the interviews
Research - Step 2: With the transcripts of the
interviews, each researcher analyzed
Methodology
the cases separately from the
others.
- Step 3: Researchers rejoined to
share the relevant themes they had
initially identified.
- Step 4: In the final iteration, the
researchers crystallized the five
themes and cross-checked them by
performing a backward classification.
04 EMPIRICAL
RESULTS
 4. Empirical results

Welion: Design Group Italia and Generali Italia

SpA. 1
WindTreBusiness: Chatbot Triplesense reply
2 and Wind3.

HiDubai 3
MaintenanceApp- IBM iX and Snam
4 MaintenanceApp

The emergence of design thinking dynamic

capabilities for digital transformation. 5
 4. Empirical results
4.1. Welion: Design Group Italia and Generali Italia SpA.

- In 2007: Generali Italia SpA decided to build a portfolio of welfare services for
employees and did not have a clear idea in mind → involved in Design Group Italia
(DGI) → invented Welion (an organization within Generali ) offers a set of
welfare services for families, organizations and employees , leverage on Artificial
Intelligence and wearables to educate and support people in achieving their
wellbeing through a personalized and automated support system that
accompanies the user.
- Welion:

+ final users are the employees that would benefit from the services offered by Welion
+ the generation and selection of high-level ideas

+ the existing digital technologies that could fit the service

 4. Empirical results
4.2. WindTreBusiness Chatbot: Triplesense reply and Wind3
The integration of the B2C perspective helped Wind3 Business and Triplesense
Reply to observe the initial problem with a different lens
alternate problem solving and marketing features.

4.3. HiDubai – Doing part of Capgemini and department of

economic development of Dubai
- create 9 personas and identify the most relevant variables for designing the
service.
- integrated effectively the predictive analytics to create a network of people
and workers.
 4. Empirical results
4.4. MaintenanceApp – IBM iX and Snam
“The design thinking sessions allowed us to understand more on the core issues
perceived by different stakeholders.”
“The collaboration with the users and definition of user stories allowed us to emphasize
some requisites. Thanks to user stories, we overcome older methods to get to the
requisites, typical of technical teams. “

4.5. The emergence of design thinking dynamic capabilities for digital

transformation
EXTENDING through the close collaboration and observation of the stakeholders
DEBATING the artificial and the human perspectives
CROPPING the alternative solutions and information, as a result of empathizing with
the user
INTERPRETING by empathizing with the final user
RECOMBINING artificial with human factors.
05 DISCUSSION
 05. Discussion

The capabilities emerging from the

interviews unveil how design
thinking is deemed to be
appropriate to study and effectively
interpret the dynamics of complex
systems
The capability to empathize with
users is at the core of design
thinking

In facing complexity, design

thinking tackles issues by first The more the available data, the
considering them in their entirety, more data interpretation becomes
including the broader context they crucial
derive
 06
CONCLUSIONS
 06.Conclusions

This qualitative analysis sheds light on the role of design thinking

dynamic capabilities in capitalizing on digital technologies' opportunities

Our qualitative study identifies new and thus far unexplored design
thinking dynamic capabilities that enable digital transformation in a
business-to-business environment, the consulting one

This study opens up new areas of investigation through combining the

design thinking, digital technologies, and dynamic capabilities research
streams, suggesting future studies aimed at understanding the
intertwined relationships existing and emerging within them
 THANK YOU
FOR
YOUR ATTENTION !