The dot-com bubble, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine: crises seem to be coming in quicker and quicker succession. But for marketers, those crises — from local events in specific markets to global phenomena — also always contain an opportunity. In this webinar, Tim Karpisek, Business Strategist at iO, explains how you can find relevant growth opportunities in times of crisis.

Digital transformation may be a buzzword, but that’s because it’s happening right now. Digitalisation has gained momentum every part of society and it’s showing no sign of slowing down. Consumers have high expectations and now it’s for companies to anticipate their digital needs. iO has the expertise and experience your company needs for effective digital transformation.

How will your organisation challenge the status quo? What role do you hold in a market where the lines between different domains are becoming less distinct? How are you going to shape a future-proof business model that ensures that you are still relevant the day after tomorrow?

If you were to start all over again tomorrow, would you end up where you are today?   

Today, even innovation and transformation processes are highly subject to innovation and transformation. Uilke Duinstra, innovation strategist at the Utrecht campus of iO, is getting more and more questions from customers like: “We are a mobility company, but we also want to enter the energy market. How do we do that?” or “We are a B2B company, but how do we also become B2C?” More generally, it concerns questions such as “How can we develop relevant new services step by step, without immediately plunging into a multimillion-dollar project we’re not sure will work at all?” These kinds of issues, which show that domains and sectors are increasingly fading, require a new approach to innovation processes.

Innovation: everyone is convinced that it is necessary. Unfortunately, in practice, the process of innovation can sometimes be inefficient, take far too long, cause resentment or simply miss the mark. This is where the Design Sprint can help. This method, developed by Google Ventures, imposes a demandingly tight format and rapid pace on innovation processes. It can be difficult to identify which issues lend themselves perfectly to this method, and which issues benefit from the application of other methods. Thanks to our extensive experience with Design Sprints, at several campuses, iO can guide you through this process with confidence.

Research demonstrates that companies that shape products and services, in a co-creative process with their end users, can benefit from as much as a 32% higher revenue growth than their competitors, over 5 years. It’s little wonder that Design Thinking — a solution-oriented methodology, in which issues are defined directly from listening to the needs of the end user — is gaining ground. Bas van Dun and Dylan Fanego, digital strategy consultant and UX designer at iO, explain: "Sometimes the solution does not lie in the app or website that you initially had in mind".

Many organisations have a firm grasp on the customer journey. They know the touchpoints and how customers move through them. But looking at it in a more in-depth way – how do we optimise processes and customer contact? – is not something many businesses do. Mostly because businesses don’t look at their operations from the customer’s point of view, but only from that of the organisation. The Service Blueprint takes care of that.