Reflection – Mind Mapping    Challenge  I work with a start-up vehicle manufacturing company and I am a part of the marketing and  business development department. In the past five years, the company has made ten sample  vehicles which were not for commercial purposes but to test the company’s ability to  manufacture reliable, technically approved, durable, operational and comfortable vehicles.  This year, our main challenge and objective as a team is to come up with a commercialization  strategy for our products in order to break into the automotive market and make this a profit  making company. As part of the challenge, we were tasked to identify our target customers,  products, pricing, sales and distribution strategy, and other services we can offer.    Selection

The first design thinking tool we used as a team was mind mapping which enabled us to look  for patterns and insights from available data on current trends in the automotive industry,  including customer needs, wants, preferences and demand, competition, the different products  on market and their prices, the different modes of distribution and services offered within the  industry in order to get more creative solutions to the commercialization challenge. Since our  main goal was to establish criteria for the idea generation phase as a team, we picked on mind  mapping because it is more intuitive, creative, visual, and it's more engaging. Mind mapping  not only enabled us to involve the entire team in order to develop a common mind regarding  the way forward and steps towards commercializing the company, but also to capture and  represent the minds of our customers.

Application

One of the first action points was to hold workshops as the marketing team and establish the  current status of the company’s commercialization strategy, the gaps therein, and establish a  way forward. As part of the mind mapping process, each of the team members was given a  notebook, sticky notes and a marker. We were then requested, without inquiring from one  another, to note on separate sticky notes different ideas of target customers, products to offer  and pricing strategies. We reviewed these for about five minutes and then each member was  required to present their views and place the sticky notes on a white board for the whole team  to see. At the end of the presentations, we grouped and categorised the different ideas for each  of the above categories.

Insight

We identified different insights revealed for each group of ideas and were able to categorise  and clearly define our customers, and determine how these can be satisfied by doing a product  breakdown for each of the customers. Against this backdrop, customers were divided into two  broad sectors namely, private and public sectors as shown below;

Table 1: Customer Segments

Sectors  Categories

Public   Educational Institutions

City Authorities

MDA

Private  Educational Institutions  Logistics  Bus Operators   Corporate companies  Private individual owners  Health institutions  Tourism and Leisure

A product breakdown for each customer segment was done as shown below;

Table 2: Product Portfolio

Customer Segment  Products

Educational Institutions  Diesel Bus  Vans 5.5-7 meter mini buses  Pickups  SUV’s

City Authorities  10, 12-meter bus, Diesel Bus  Pickups and SUV’s for Executives   Pickup for logistics   Electric City Buses   Electric bus

MDA  Electric Bus  Diesel Bus   SUV, Pick-ups   Trucks and Lorries   SUVs (Directors, Ministers, Executives)

Approach

Through the creativity and intuition of the mind mapping design tool, the team was able to  come to an agreement on who their target customers are and what products each customer  prefers. The team set out to establish the current state, analyse gap, and devise a way forward  / action plan. The team also agreed to have another mind mapping session to determine sales  and distribution methods, services the company should offer and a communications strategy.

