REFLECTION – VISUALIZATION

Challenge and Selection

The tool I use at the start of any innovative journey we undertake is Visualisation. As an  entrepreneur, it is very important to understand your business environment and bringing new  initiatives in the market. Thus, visualization is an important concept that we use in trying to  understand our customers, their needs and how those needs evolve with time. It also allows us to  see the customer from their eyes and to feel what they are feeling which  leads to us having  customer. This is very important as it allows not just to treat our customers as market segments that  have to contribute positively to our margins, but as human beings with actual human needs which  require a human centred approach.

Application

Being in the fast-food restaurant business, we came to a realisation that we were becoming one of  the major causes of obesity and that we had to find solutions to that. Looking at our customers we  realised that most of them were high school kids from the ages of 14 to 19, who would come to buy  a quick bite for lunch and after classes on their way home.

The first thing we did was we created simulations where we started imagining ourselves as students  in the classroom. We imagined how the classes can sometimes be long and boring, and how we  would be exhausted and hungry by lunchtime. We then noticed how this has contributed to the type  of meals the students selected for lunch.  The most common ones were burgers, fried chicken and  chips, wraps and potato wedges.

We then created notice boards and on them we started with pictures of the most common meal  choices. We then went on to look at the amount of calories that these meals had. Then it became  clear to us, as to why students select those type of meals.

After looking at the ‘what is” question through visualization, we then went on to the ‘what if’  question. We started to look into how we can improve our meals in terms of offering a balanced diet  and at the same time meeting the calory intake that the students needed. We started researching on  fruits and vegetables. We discovered interesting insights on how to combine fruits and vegetables  with our traditional menu, in order to create more balanced meals that meet our customers calory  intake.

Through our experiments and interaction with our customers, we realised that they still want to  have our traditional meal at their disposal but would also like it to be combined with fruit and  vegetables. We started bundling our traditional meals of fries and burgers (at reduced quantities)  with vegetable salads, fruit, smoothies and the like.

Insight and Approach

Going through this process helped me and our team to realise that eating healthy and the promotion  of it, is something that requires more than just campaigns and awareness on media platforms.  Rather it requires a different understating of the people affected, placing yourself in their shoes and

then working together to find solutions that work. This whole experience also taught me the  importance of visualization as well as customer empathy.

I think that for future purposes, I would still use the same tools but coming from a clean slate. I  would remove all the preconceived ideas I have and start from a perspective of trying to understand  the customer, and the environment better. Going through this whole experience showed me that,  having preconceived ideas may not be the best way of approaching wicked problems.

