1.
COVID SPEEDED UP A REVOLUTION THAT WAS ALREADY UNDERWAY, MOVING US PAST SILOS TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS WHERE NUMEROUS STAKEHOLDERS ARE ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS IN THE CREATION OF EVER-MORE PERSONALISED SERVICES. IN THIS SCENARIO, HOW IMPORTANT IS USER EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPING PLATFORMS FOR THE CREATION OF THESE SERVICES?
Even today, when it comes to innovation and Digital Transformation, many businesses still make the mistake of paying too much attention to technological and organizational aspects, underestimating the strategic importance of the user's experience when interacting with digital services and the contexts in which this takes place.
Thinking in terms of digital ecosystems is a must, but it's not enough to overturn this approach; the ecosystem must be understood as a network of complex relationships through which people form meaningful experiences that determine if the user will engage with or abandon a specific service, rather than the company as a whole.
Matching one's offer with customers' true needs is vital to the success of a product and, more generally, a brand.
The pandemic made the convergence of digital and physical spaces unavoidable but, in the "New Normal", it will probably be key to building a sustainable business; when this happens, investing in user experience won't just be driven by strategic choices, but by the need to progressively understand customers better, thus establishing with them a longlasting relationship in a market that grows more fluid and dynamic by the day.
Even today, when it comes to innovation and Digital Transformation, many businesses still make the mistake of paying too much attention to technological and organizational aspects, underestimating the strategic importance of the user's experience when interacting with digital services and the contexts in which this takes place.
Thinking in terms of digital ecosystems is a must, but it's not enough to overturn this approach; the ecosystem must be understood as a network of complex relationships through which people form meaningful experiences that determine if the user will engage with or abandon a specific service, rather than the company as a whole.
Matching one's offer with customers' true needs is vital to the success of a product and, more generally, a brand.
The pandemic made the convergence of digital and physical spaces unavoidable but, in the "New Normal", it will probably be key to building a sustainable business; when this happens, investing in user experience won't just be driven by strategic choices, but by the need to progressively understand customers better, thus establishing with them a longlasting relationship in a market that grows more fluid and dynamic by the day.
2.
ONE OF THE MAIN PILLARS OF OUR APPROACH IS KNOWING HOW TO WORK SIDE-BY-SIDE WITH OUR STAKEHOLDERS: DESIGN THINKING IS UNDOUBTEDLY A FUNDAMENTAL TOOL TO DEVELOPING A CO-DESIGNED SOLUTION. CAN YOU DESCRIBE ITS PURPOSE AND ADVANTAGES?
According to a study by Hardvard Business Review, the greatest obstacle to innovation and digital transformation is companies' inability to experiment quickly.
Design thinking is a methodological approach that helps organizations and working groups build this type of skill. It focuses on the user's perspective and the data collected during their use of a service, promotes stakeholders' involvement, combines analytical approaches with creative problem-solving and idea-generation methodologies and, more importantly, it encourages quick, iterative cycles of designing, prototyping and decision assessment.
Not only can this approach be adapted to the innovation context it's used in (start-up creation, new business models, new services, development roadmaps, training projects), it also guarantees:
In Framework Engineering, Design Thinking provides a competitive advantage to anyone wishing to harness the wealth of experience and resources gathered by our Competence Center over the course of twenty years' activity , for the development of innovation projects with quality solutions and reasonable timeframes and costs.
According to a study by Hardvard Business Review, the greatest obstacle to innovation and digital transformation is companies' inability to experiment quickly.
Design thinking is a methodological approach that helps organizations and working groups build this type of skill. It focuses on the user's perspective and the data collected during their use of a service, promotes stakeholders' involvement, combines analytical approaches with creative problem-solving and idea-generation methodologies and, more importantly, it encourages quick, iterative cycles of designing, prototyping and decision assessment.
Not only can this approach be adapted to the innovation context it's used in (start-up creation, new business models, new services, development roadmaps, training projects), it also guarantees:
- user-driven planning linked to the real needs of users, in the different contexts in which they operate
- a holistic view of the problem and the related solutions, as an opportunity for the different voices in the working group to come together
- a chance for inner talents to emerge and develop by actively involving them in the design process
- reduced risk of error and lower implementation costs
- the speedy adoption of solutions proposed by end users
- a culture of continuous innovation within the organization.
In Framework Engineering, Design Thinking provides a competitive advantage to anyone wishing to harness the wealth of experience and resources gathered by our Competence Center over the course of twenty years' activity , for the development of innovation projects with quality solutions and reasonable timeframes and costs.
3.
BUSINESS AND REPUTATIONAL GROWTH IS A PRIMARY GOAL FOR ANY COMPANY. WHAT ARE THE BEST TOOLS FOR A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?
We believe the core of effective communication is careful listening. Our communication strategies are built on digital listening, that is, analysing your target audience's interests, needs, aspirations, feelings and connections.
We use Artificial Intelligence to understand natural language, automatically detect the general mood of comments, reviews and conversations, recognize logos, products and influential figures in pictures, predict the growth of recorded KPIs.
Through data visualization and dashboard and report creation, findings are presented, shared in working groups and quickly made usable. Automated notification and alert systems ensure timely responses and help prevent crises and fake news.
Listening gives us a clear, detailed picture of our partner's wants and opinions, which is all we need to implement a customer and data-oriented content strategy, based on establishing a relationship rather than merely acquiring new sources of visibility.
The aim of every one of our communication strategies is to capture the trust and interest of the target audience through the creation and circulation of original, appealing, useful or even simply entertaining content, thus gaining in prestige and building solid, longlasting relationships.
We believe the core of effective communication is careful listening. Our communication strategies are built on digital listening, that is, analysing your target audience's interests, needs, aspirations, feelings and connections.
We use Artificial Intelligence to understand natural language, automatically detect the general mood of comments, reviews and conversations, recognize logos, products and influential figures in pictures, predict the growth of recorded KPIs.
Through data visualization and dashboard and report creation, findings are presented, shared in working groups and quickly made usable. Automated notification and alert systems ensure timely responses and help prevent crises and fake news.
Listening gives us a clear, detailed picture of our partner's wants and opinions, which is all we need to implement a customer and data-oriented content strategy, based on establishing a relationship rather than merely acquiring new sources of visibility.
The aim of every one of our communication strategies is to capture the trust and interest of the target audience through the creation and circulation of original, appealing, useful or even simply entertaining content, thus gaining in prestige and building solid, longlasting relationships.
4.
YOUR COMPETENCE CENTER HAS A DIVERSE TEAM OF PROFESSIONALS. HOW IMPORTANT IS INTERDISCIPLINARY INPUT IN TACKLING AND SUPPORTING AN EFFECTIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECT?
Innovation and finding responses to complex challenges are handled best in interdisciplinary teams where each member contributes competence, roles and sensitivity, providing a range of different approaches to address problem-solving and new opportunities. This is true both for the team assisting our customers in the Design Thinking process and for customers themselves, whom we ask to involve all interested stakeholders. By leveraging empathy and nurturing curiosity and lateral thinking, interdisciplinary teams soon develop a robust team spirit, with a strong, common acceptance of the project's vision and all the choices made in the course of its implementation.
Teams work in "innovation spaces", organized flexibly in accordance with collaboration needs to better aid in the discussion and ideation of individual solutions. Most of the time, we work standing up to maintain an active body posture, focused on the co-conception of tangible and concrete experiences that are then tested with real users, to ensure timely and direct feedback on prototype solutions as we implement them. Our service designers are responsible for facilitating the group's work, to ensure that co-designing is a dynamic and creative experience for all involved.
In addition to helping promoting innovation and creativity, having a multidisciplinary work team also plays a role in creating the necessary climate to ensure the company enjoys full collaboration by all the functions involved in the processes of "continuous transformation", which now affect most sectors, whether public or private.
Innovation and finding responses to complex challenges are handled best in interdisciplinary teams where each member contributes competence, roles and sensitivity, providing a range of different approaches to address problem-solving and new opportunities. This is true both for the team assisting our customers in the Design Thinking process and for customers themselves, whom we ask to involve all interested stakeholders. By leveraging empathy and nurturing curiosity and lateral thinking, interdisciplinary teams soon develop a robust team spirit, with a strong, common acceptance of the project's vision and all the choices made in the course of its implementation.
Teams work in "innovation spaces", organized flexibly in accordance with collaboration needs to better aid in the discussion and ideation of individual solutions. Most of the time, we work standing up to maintain an active body posture, focused on the co-conception of tangible and concrete experiences that are then tested with real users, to ensure timely and direct feedback on prototype solutions as we implement them. Our service designers are responsible for facilitating the group's work, to ensure that co-designing is a dynamic and creative experience for all involved.
In addition to helping promoting innovation and creativity, having a multidisciplinary work team also plays a role in creating the necessary climate to ensure the company enjoys full collaboration by all the functions involved in the processes of "continuous transformation", which now affect most sectors, whether public or private.
5.
THE INCREASINGLY RAPID EVOLUTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES PROVIDES (AND DEMANDS) A PROCESS OF CONTINUOUS TRAINING, TO IMPLEMENT AND IMPROVE SKILLS. HOW CAN DIGITAL HELP BUILD KNOWLEDGE ECOSYSTEMS FOCUSED ON THE PERSON AND THEIR NEEDS FOR CONTINUOUS GROWTH?
Once, successful organizations were considered to be those that achieved a level of stability that would ensure maximum operational efficiency and effectiveness. Today, technological evolution requires organizations to be structured as flexible and open systems, networks of relationships characterized by dynamic processes and able to give space to individual autonomy, while urging open-mindedness and a spirit of collaboration, both inside and outside the company. In this continuous process of transformation, individual and organizational learning becomes a critical success factor and digital technologies represent the lever which can render it sustainable. But this doesn't mean transposing traditional teaching practices online. Rather, we must exploit the potential of digital to provide learning solutions that are truly personalized and adaptive, increasingly integrated into our work and social activities. Such learning must also take place outside classrooms and e-learning platforms and must fulfill the role of development enabler, leveraging the enormous potential expressed by digital technologies: simulation systems and role-playing games on the network, Mixed Reality and gamification, adoption platforms and machine learning systems , learning analytics and Artificial Intelligence, social annotation practices and collaborative knowledge building...
With this in mind, the real challenge is on the methodological level and involves the task of designing and orchestrating these extensive training ecosystems, enhancing the infinite opportunities for training and identifying the most effective methods of certification of skills and detection of new needs within continuous evolutionary processes.
A challenge that must never lose its focus on the users and their legitimate aspiration to consciously orient their development within increasingly lifelong and lifewide dynamics.
Once, successful organizations were considered to be those that achieved a level of stability that would ensure maximum operational efficiency and effectiveness. Today, technological evolution requires organizations to be structured as flexible and open systems, networks of relationships characterized by dynamic processes and able to give space to individual autonomy, while urging open-mindedness and a spirit of collaboration, both inside and outside the company. In this continuous process of transformation, individual and organizational learning becomes a critical success factor and digital technologies represent the lever which can render it sustainable. But this doesn't mean transposing traditional teaching practices online. Rather, we must exploit the potential of digital to provide learning solutions that are truly personalized and adaptive, increasingly integrated into our work and social activities. Such learning must also take place outside classrooms and e-learning platforms and must fulfill the role of development enabler, leveraging the enormous potential expressed by digital technologies: simulation systems and role-playing games on the network, Mixed Reality and gamification, adoption platforms and machine learning systems , learning analytics and Artificial Intelligence, social annotation practices and collaborative knowledge building...
With this in mind, the real challenge is on the methodological level and involves the task of designing and orchestrating these extensive training ecosystems, enhancing the infinite opportunities for training and identifying the most effective methods of certification of skills and detection of new needs within continuous evolutionary processes.
A challenge that must never lose its focus on the users and their legitimate aspiration to consciously orient their development within increasingly lifelong and lifewide dynamics.
Massimo Mazzarini
Massimo has worked for over 30 years in the multimedia communication and e-learning sector, and has extensive experience in the electronic publishing market.
In 2005, after 10 years of entrepreneurial activity at the helm of Fonderie Multimediali, he became Director of Engineering Interactive, the Competence Center of the Engineering Group, working on Service & UX design services, Learning Services, Digital Communication, Social Media Management.
In 2005, after 10 years of entrepreneurial activity at the helm of Fonderie Multimediali, he became Director of Engineering Interactive, the Competence Center of the Engineering Group, working on Service & UX design services, Learning Services, Digital Communication, Social Media Management.
Contact us
marketing@eng.it
Tel. (+39) 06-87591