De Rijke Noordzee (DRN) is a Dutch organization with a mission to enhance nature utilizing the opportunities which offshore wind farms offer. The organization is currently working on several nature enhancement projects in offshore wind farms in the Dutch part of the North Sea. However, DRN’s mission to enhance biodiversity does not stop at the borders of the North Sea. Therefore, I explored in this report the opportunities for DRN to collaborate with the North Sea countries in offshore wind farms (OWFs).

To find opportunities for DRN, I started with an analysis of De Rijke Noordzee by interviewing employees of DRN. Based on this analysis, I found two critical needs regarding international collaboration. The need for a strategy on international collaboration between North Sea countries and a way to share knowledge on nature enhancement. Furthermore, I identified three valuable strengths of DRN: 1) connector between science, industry and government, 2) practical performer in nature enhancement projects, 3) opportunity focussed.

Thereafter, I created future contexts on Enhancing biodiversity in the North Sea by 2030 with the so called ViP method. I selected the most promising two future contexts which align with DRN’s needs and strengths: A) North Sea cooperation plays a significant role in educating people about nature topics and B) Nature education starts by engaging locally.
Based on the two analyses, I primarily focussed on the development of a strategy on North Sea collaboration (including looking for a country to start knowledge sharing with). Furthermore, on the development of ideas for DRN to share knowledge on nature enhancement projects by engaging locally.

To assess the North Sea countries, I built a decision tree based on a list of factors which influences the suitability for DRN to share knowledge with this country. The North Sea countries Germany, Denmark, UK and Belgium appeared to be suitable for collaboration from 2024 on, where Germany has the highest score. Furthermore, France and Norway might be suitable to share knowledge with in the future.

To come up with different ideas on sharing knowledge on nature enhancement by engaging locally, I organized multiple brainstorm sessions. Four ideas were selected for DRN which create the highest impact and at the same time acquire low effort to be implemented in 2024.

Consequently, I formulated a strategy on how to approach the North Sea collaboration to enhance biodiversity by 2030. This strategy is illustrated in a roadmap including selected ideas for horizon 1. The strategy is summarized as following:

Horizon 1: Share knowledge with Germany by engaging locally while: eating OWF seafood in restaurants, walking along the coast line or joining a music festival.

Horizon 2: Share and gain knowledge with and from Denmark, the UK and Belgium.

Horizon 3: Scale knowledge with France and Norway.

Besides the developed strategy, the decision tree is a structured tool for DRN to evaluate countries for collaboration in the future. Together with DRN, I discovered how the decision can be feasible, viable and desirable for them. As a result a poster was developed to inspire DRN employees. Besides, the decision tree is valuable in acquiring new funding and informing new and current stakeholders.

In addition to these outcomes for DRN, I discovered the contribution for Accenture. Together with fellow design consultants from Accenture, I explored the use of the ViP method within Accenture. I organized a brainstorm session to discuss the potential value. The session resulted in a positive response towards a VIP by a majority of my colleagues. Therefore, I designed a guide to integrate the ViP method within Accenture.

This graduation project focuses on creating a meaningful connection between BMW and Indian consumers. The goal is to increase 

understanding of the Indian market, as a means to strengthen BMW´s market 

presence in India as well as emerge as the most preferred luxury car brand. 

An extensive research has been conducted, including a field trip to India, to get an understanding of what ´makes Indians tick´. The insights generated by this study can help BMW substantially in catering in a more efficient and Indian market if desired by the brand.

 

As India has currently the second largest population in the world, with 1.41 billion people (India Population (2022) - Worldometer, n.d.), and a proportionately growing economy, many leading global players, such as BMW, are competing for prominence in the Indian automotive market (Chhibber & Gupta, 2021). 

This explains the tremendous acceleration of the luxury automobile market in India, which finds itself racing to keep pace and cope with the increasing demand for premium models. The Indian luxury car market was valued at more than USD 1 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 1.54 billion by 2027 (India Luxury Car Market Size, Share, Report (2022 - 27), n.d.). Thus, although Indian may not be one of BMW´s high-volume single markets today, the potential for growth is high.

 

To flourish in a culture-sensitive country such as India, luxury companies must tread carefully and understand the Indian consumer, their values and needs. With the aim to fulfil this purpose and portray how this consumer understanding may translate into design, this graduation project seeks to find answer(s) for the following research question:

 

How to create a meaningful connection 

between BMW and Indian consumers in terms of values and what kind of experience fuels that value?

 

Accenture Interactive, the marketing arm of international consultancy Accenture, has been created to address the evolving needs of their clients in the field of design and technology. As a result, Accenture Interactive now consists of several pillars that together can deliver a meaningful end-to-end experience. Delivering value to the client and the organization in projects by collaborating across pillars are called cross-pillar projects.

However, Accenture Interactive encounters that the current collaboration between the different pillars in client projects is not at the level they would like it to be. In line with this observation, the purpose of this thesis was to explore what goes wrong in the current cross-pillar projects, with the aim to reveal the influencing factors of these projects.

Therefore, this thesis aimed to improve the cross- pillar performance by defining the definition of cross- pillar working in the context of Accenture Interactive, and resolving the barriers towards the envisioned level of cross-pillar working. As a result, an integrated solution was created, consisting of improvements in existing communication channels and adding a proposition development approach to the existing initiation process.

This was examined by conducting twelve in-depth interviews with different pillars, from six completed cross-pillar projects. The interviews defined the context of cross-pillar work in Accenture Interactive and the elements that make up all the studied cross-pillar projects. Then, a deeper look was taken at differences emerged between the performance of the studied projects. This led to the problem statement that the performance of a cross-pillar project is influenced by the presence of awareness and willingness in the initiation of the projects.

A deeper study was conducted to determine which barriers are present during initiation preventing awareness and willingness. The design goal, was to develop means and approaches that could help employees to facilitate cross-pillar collaboration during the initiation of new projects. To facilitate implementation, it is proposed that existing activities, like Chapter Zero and Friday morning meetings, could help serve that purpose. The end goal of this approach is to learn to initiate cross-pillar projects by experiencing how to bring value to clients by collaborating between pillars.

Furthermore, a roadmap is created to guide Accenture Interactive in bridging the gap between the results of this project and the new practice of cross-pillar working. This roadmap aligns the different development processes within Accenture Interactive, reflects how this thesis’s outcomes fit within the intended timeline, and provides direction to Accenture Interactive’s vision.

Money is a worry for many people, and one of the main factor to create well-being in society. Nowadays, 44% of young adults, say that money is their main reason for suffering from stress (Pew Research Center, 2020). Most of the young adults (62%) don't feel financially stable and about two-thirds state that they are living short on money, from pay-day to pay-day (CNBC, 2019). They usually have student debt, a harder time getting a mortgage and a permanent contract and on average fewer earnings than previous generations.

The problem of money and young adults is very common and could be scalable all over the world. In this project, the target group and the context were based on The Netherlands, due to the changing-situation nowadays of higher levels of debt, lower levels of income and difficulties to buy a get a mortgage, buy a house, or get a permanent contract (Nibud, 2019).

Research shows that the correlation with the money that these people are earning is very little. It’s not a problem of income in most of the cases, but a problem of behaviour. The behavioural model of Fogg (Fogg, 2009) explains that new behaviour is developed when people feel motivated up to a certain degree and take action to include that certain behaviour in their everyday life. I wanted to provide young adults with a solution that combined motivation, triggers and ability. A lack of motivation and trust in financial services and of tools to create better money behaviour with a focus on the long-term goals for millennials was found.

This graduation project has the goal of helping young adults with low financial capabilities that are in the contemplation stage (Prochaska 1979; Prochaska and DiClemente 1983) to change their current financial behaviour for one that improves their financial health in the future by offering tailored solutions.

The whole project followed a double-diamond process (TU Delft, 2019) and was performed following a user-centred design and strategic design approach. For this project Research consisted of user and context research. Including activities like literature analysis, user and expert interviews, online surveys, benchmark analysis of competitors, creative sessions and desk analysis. These activities were useful to understand the Target group on a deeper level. The research phase studied the young adult's ambitions, problems, goals, values and needs about finances, as well as their behavioural, financial, demographical and cultural context. The user research insights combined with the contextual research insights were analysed and combined with a result of a problem definition and a design direction.

The design direction looked into the use of Artificial Intelligence and social features to support people to create better money behaviour. The design direction was framed together with the design goal and vision. As a design vision, the financial journey was compared to a car journey and the solution of a navigation app indicated inspiring qualities and affordances to use as a starting point in the new phase of the project: ideation. The ideation phase consisted of a creative session, a definition of the key experiences and a creation of several concepts that after being tested and iterated in different levels of fidelity, lead to the final design.

Finally, the report finishes with a definition of the final concept: SARA.AI, that supports young adults to become financially free by offering user-tailored solutions. SARA is a user-centred financial robot-advisor that is personalised and always available for the user, giving real-time information of the financial situation, and focused on improving the financial behaviour of the people. It’s about substituting the experience of having a financial advisor by a service which is user-centred designed, accessible, and smarter. SARA helps people by the use of three core experiences: Setting either spending limits or saving goals every month for the users, visualising the daily/monthly progress on a roadmap showing the future financial goals and the estimated time of arrival and using the power of social rewards and achievements to motivate users to keep improving.

SARA.AI means financial freedom. It is about giving the users the power to live the life that they want. To choose their goals, the way to reach them, and to take control of their lives. Not only for people with knowledge in finances but for everyone.

This graduation project was initated in collaboration with Nibud to explore and imagine possibilities to facilitate a value-driven approach to financial decision-making. Several factors stress the relevance of this challenge, in particular regarding millennials as a target group. From an economic point of view, millennials are facing an affordability crisis (aging population, student debt, expensive housing, flexibile contracting and a looming recession). From a psychological perspective, a disparity seems to exist between what people expect will increase their wellbeing versus what types of consumption actually succeeds in doing so. Therefore, prioritizing saving over spending can be seen as an alternative way of sustainably increasing wellbeing. Millennials their early stage of life, digital nativity and strong sense of autonomy allows for opportunities to unburden them from financial hardship, yet the field of personal finance has seen surprisingly limited technological development aimed at this potential. With cash slowly being replaced by thoughtless payment, digitalization has left people with obscured and chronologically fragmented financial transactions that provide little feedback on their consumption pattern. This limited facilitation to prioritize saving over spending raises the threshold for attaining a financial overview up to a level that is only accessible to a happy few that is both highly motivated as well as tech-savvy. Furthermore, current solutions offer limited connection between short-term decisions and prospective long-term wellbeing (saving goals) and instead remain oriented towards retrospective micro-management. Lastly, commercial parties extracting sensitive personal data can count on public distrust, which is less of an issue for an independent foundation like Nibud. Using a ViP inspired approach, many factors were turned into six clusters that provided interesting directions in which to generate ideas on how Nibud can grab the opportunity of increasing millennials their agency to proactively prioritize saving over spending and thus unburden their lives from financial stress. The final design proposal is a participatory savings program called ‘meesparen’. Besides setting, tracking and comparing efforts at reaching saving goals, the application also supports a clear overview on recurring expenses, free spending and saving goals, which can be compared to peers that are motivated to start saving as well. The design was evaluated and redesigned to clearly demonstrate its potential to help millennials put money back into their hands.

This thesis focuses on improving the performance of ventures through collaboration and knowledge sharing. Many huge multinational companies are struggling to keep their innovation funnel filled and to transform their ventures into successful new businesses. One of the challenges that Internal Corporate Ventures are facing is the lack of overview of which capabilities and what activities other ventures have or are performing. Using gamification, the Synergy platform aims to create more transparency in the venturing environment. The three main challenges to lack of collaborative behaviour in the venturing environment are tackled through the platform. These challenges are (1) finding knowledge, (2) finding experts and (3) sharing knowledge. However, there is still a catch-22 when introducing such a platform; “when there is not content, no one will use the platform, however, when no one is using the platform, no content will be added”. In order to breach this catch-22, two roadmaps have been designed. The engagement roadmap focuses on engaging users to actively contribute to the platform while the technical roadmap takes care of the feasibility of the platform.

This master thesis is written for the master program Strategic Product Design with the Belgian company Barco NV as a client. At the beginning, the main objective was to gain a better understanding on the current situation of the organization around foresight activities, their barriers and challenges. The aim was to later develop a solution that could help them to overcome those challenges discovered and to have a more proactive attitude towards the future.
Barco NV is a well-known technology company with a tradition as a hardware manufacturer. Barco is currently going through a digital transformation and counts on a renewed strategy that also considers customer centricity and business innovation as starting points for innovation as relevant as technology. However, in practice this is much more complex, and the firm is step by step evolving into that ideal. The company tends to end up focusing mostly in the short term. This happens, among other reasons, because of a lack of skills, a non-tangible or workable company vision, and the self-pressure on meeting their economic plans. This causes the proposition of short-term businesses and therefore limits the explorative attitude in the firm. To support in this challenge, the initial phase of the thesis was focused on gaining a better understanding on the current challenges in Barco around foresight activities. As such, literature study in corporate foresight and some of its methods like scenario planning was employed. In parallel, internal research based on interviews with Barco employees gave the first keys to discover the barriers that the firm was facing and the feeling towards them. Thanks to the research done and the insights gained in Barco, the focus was on defining and co-creating a workshop. This workshop would enable Barco teams to shape future scenarios and improve their foresight skills. However, due to certain events that were taking place in Barco, this solution couldn’t be pursued and a new opportunity emerged.
The Scenario Creation workshop was upgraded into a theoretical framework, which was developed with the input of three technology corporates and the recommendations of two consultants. All these professionals had links and personal interest in topics around innovation, foresight, design thinking and strategy. This framework was created to support Barco in having a better and holistic understanding on the business context in which the firm operates and its surroundings. In this way, it will help them in anticipating to changes in the three horizons of innovation. At the same time, it brings a change in mindset where the validation of hypotheses about future innovations plays a crucial role by involving external experts and end users in the scenario creation process. Finally, it brings a better way to communicate innovation and to test future scenarios: externally, to get them challenged by experts, and internally, to create a shared language for innovation. The foresight framework is characterized for combining design thinking principles, like user-centeredness, iteration, validation, creativity, inspiration and abstract and concrete thinking, with deep knowledge in foresight activities and scenario planning.

Increasing computing power, networking capabilities, rapid developments in information and communication technologies have made digital technologies part of our lives and changed the dynamics in the society and in the business world. (Demirkan, Spohrer, & Welser, 2016; Svahn, Henfridsson, & Yoo, 2009). While presenting numerous opportunities for organizations, digital technologies lowered the threshold in the market for new entrants. Therefore, change has become imperative for large organizations in order to survive. This profound and accelerating transformation of business activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities brought by digital technologies is called digital transformation (Demirkan, Spohrer, & Welser, 2016). Digital transformation presents a novel and complex challenge for organizations regardless which industry they belong to. It is imperative for all the organizations to embrace the deep-rooted, never ending digital journey for their survival. However, going through this journey is not easy for organizations in highly competitive and rapidly changing business environments. Clearly, it is impossible for companies to respond to all the technological developments happening in the world. But how should the companies choose the right technology and how should they apply it? How can they reap the benefits of these technologies in favor of their organization and customers? On the other hand, brand, is an established concept in the literature. It is acknowledged by the literature that it could be a powerful tool for organizations in selecting, guiding and maintaining strategic directions for organizations (Mosmans & van der Vorst, 1998). However, the role of an organization’s brand in digital transformation is not addressed in the literature. This literature gap formed the foundation of this graduation project and was executed in collaboration with Deloitte Digital, a creative digital consultancy which helps large organizations in their digital transformation journeys and striving for acquiring new capabilities and ways of thinking. Exploration of the brand identity of the large organizations in digital transformation and bridging the insights to Deloitte Digital context provided them a new perspective over the digital transformation projects. In order to be able to enable Deloitte Digital consultants in gaining and applying brand-aware perspective on digital transformation projects, “Digital Ambitions” workshops has designed. This workshop, aims to facilitate the creation of future vision and exploration of the possibilities in different domains of digital transformation. Finally, this study has contributed to the research domains of brand and digital transformation in bridging the gap between those by proposing links between them. Additionally, a new perspective for Deloitte Digital is provided that illustrates a competitive advantage in differentiating their approach towards the clients.

This thesis explores what it takes to make innovation at ING’s PACE accelerator more effective. PACE is ING’s innovation methodology, combining design thinking, agile working and the lean start-up approach into one whole. Within ING’s corporate accelerator track PACE is used to develop disruptive value propositions.

Case-study research shows that the eighteen weeks described in guides to develop a solution from problem exploration up until a validated minimum viable product recurrently fails to be met. A major variable affecting the development time required is the elaborateness of PACE. When joining the accelerator, a multitude of guides condense to about 150 pages on innovation in the PACE accelerator.

Twenty interviews with PACE coaches and intrapreneurs indicate that this way of describing innovative practice is too elaborate for new innovators to grasp. Intrapreneurs struggle to understand their design process as the theory seems too linear to unlock the full potential of creative divergence and to react to emerging insights from user-tests.

A literature study shows that intrapreneurial skills are vital for the effectiveness of innovation. To achieve success, intrapreneurs need to become more skilled at balancing the five design activities of formulating, representing, moving, evaluating and managing.

To conduct these activities, intrapreneurs benefit from reflexive practice on their use of innovation methodology. Based on design expertise theory, reflection on an intrapreneur’s design process allows for frequent transitions between the five design activities. By doing so, a higher cognitive level is fostered and tacit knowledge is turned into explicit learnings.

This project envisions Dash, a platform for innovation learnings, bringing:
- An integration of all PACE offerings through a visualised overview,
- A low-key way of reflecting on the design process, and
- An encouraging enviroment for innovators to share key insights

By integrating these functions in an online platform, the possibilities of PACE analytics open a new way of exploring causes of less-effective innovation. Propagating a data-driven way of measuring intrapreneurial transformation.

Although the current way of applying PACE is effective to generate disruptive solutions, its presentation through elaborate guides fails to resonate with intrapreneurial expectations. To better leverage intrapreneurial skills and make innovation more effective, I urge a personalised way of presenting PACE to allow for the autonomous design process exploration to flourish.

From here, further research is required to assess the impact of intrapreneurial reflection on the effectiveness of innovation.