The Birth and Growth Trajectory of IDEO

Introduction

The only companies that are able to survive the tides of time and competition are those that are focused on enhancing the customer experience through their products or services. Customers are not the king of the market or the business world, but today they have leveled up to the position of the god of the business era. Customers are bombarded with similar or identical product offerings, and the only way to attract and retain them is by selling them things that they actually need and desire.

IDEO is a brand that has been built on this philosophy and has been doing wonders in the business world for decades. In this article, we will be diving deep into the birth and growth trajectory of IDEO and also listing down the success of IDEO while working with big brands.

Beginning of IDEO

IDEO is a design consultancy founded in Palo Alto, California, in the year 1991. IDEO is one of the most influential design consultancy firms in the United States. Today, IDEO has offices in Japan, Germany, England, and China. IDEO has a team strength of 700 employees, and the company is focused on designing solutions to enhance the product, service, environment, and digital experiences of customers when they are consuming the product or service offerings of various companies. IDEO today has expanded into organizational management consulting as well as organization design.

IDEO has served customers like

• Apple

• Marriot

• Pepsi Co.

• Ford Motor Company

• Caterpillar

• Elliy Lilly

• Parada

• Lufthansa

• the Mayo Clinic

• Procter & Gamble, and others.

Operational Excellence and Growth of IDEO

IDEO as a brand has been successful for decades, and the major attributes of its success are −

Diversity of Thought

IDEO as a brand understood that I would never be able to reach creative and innovative solutions if it had team members that were too alike and fit together. It has to have a varied group of individuals from different walks of life to help the company design what other companies cannot. Hence, IDEO created teams of MBAs, engineers, architects, software people, financial specialists, and others. These people had different thoughts and different ways of looking at things, and their solutions generally covered every aspect of the problem. Along with this, instead of yes, bossing the other person, they build up on the ideas.

Design Thinking Approach

IDEO, at a very early stage of business development, understood that what would set it apart from the other design thinking firms and what would make its solutions the most desired ones would be the human-centric approach that it has. Instead of thinking about what is best for the company or what is best for the product, IDEO started using design thinking techniques to understand what the customer desires and expects. Observing the customers before purchase, while purchasing, while consuming, or while disposing of the goods, conducting in-depth interviews with the target customers, observing and analyzing the brand and customer interaction, and others This human-centric and customer-centric approach helped the company design many of its amazing products.

Maintaining a Photographic Log

IDEO also started with maintaining a photographic log. This log contained photographs of customers in lobbies, hotel lounges, shopping malls, stores, retail outlets, and restaurants to get a visual representation of the customers' reactions while seeing the product, consuming the product, and afterwards. This helped the company get the real customer reaction, which was unsupervised.

Along with this, IDEO also invites customers to share pictures, videos, blogs, skits, or even animations about their experience while consuming the product or service.

Success of IDEO while Working with Big Brands

J. W. Marriot and IDEO − Marriot hired IDEO to make the Courtyard by Marriot hotels more attractive to young travelers. IDEO, with the help of its design thinking and customer-centric problem-solving approach, found the reasons why young consumers could not resonate with Marriot as their choice of hotel during their stay.

Through observing the customers and conducting in-depth and general interviews, it was found out that Courtyard by Marriot lacked the recreational public areas in the hotel, was not technologically advanced, and even the food choices were not as per the taste of the young customers. Marriot introduced Wi-Fi in all its properties, big speakers were added in the recreational areas, and the breakfast buffet was replaced with 24*7 open cafes to serve the customers the food that they desired. The changes worked exceptionally well, and IDEO was the reason for their success.

Apple and IDEO − IDEO have been involved with Apple for many of its designs. The special quality of IDEO that sets it apart from other design firms or technological design firms is that instead of seeing the product from the inside out, IDEO sees it from the outside. IDEO’s total focus is on how the customer will perceive the product. When IDEO was involved in building the design for the first Apple mouse, IDEO made sure that not only the beta testers, but also the senior management were involved in the prototyping of the product.

Senior management, including Steve Jobs, was given the first design of the first Apple mouse and asked for feedback. During the process, Steve told the IDEO team that he did not like the noise the mouse was making while on the desk and that this should be taken care of. During the entire process before launching the product in the market, a lot of bugs were resolved without changing the technicalities of the product, and successfully rubber coated the steel ball without interrupting its function.

Conclusion

IDEO is a brand of excellence and efficiency. IDEO has also faced a lot of challenges but was able to overcome each one of them with its persistent effort to satisfy customers and keep its employees happy. IDEO today has earned hundreds of millions of dollars, served some of the best companies in the world, and filed for thousands of patents while working. IDEO is a brand of true inspiration.