Lean Startup belongs to the agile management methods. The approach is very often used by strategic investors in the startup scene. Since 2016, we have worked in five projects with startup companies; all of them were in the advanced seed stage. In all cases, our clients were the strategic investors of the Brazilian startups. Even though the companies were in an advanced seed stage, they were still operating under noticeably increased uncertainty.

Business Development Coffee Shop Franchise - Part Three: Transformation of client relationship & migration to digital business models.

The original project focus when the project was placed at the beginning of 2020 was to develop a system to increase customer satisfaction and maintain it at a high level. During past years, our customer was in a crisis. Difficulties in the management of the company led to a loss of the profitability and customer satisfaction indices.

With the outbreak of the pandemic in Brazil in March 2020, the project focus expanded. In addition to the focus on customer satisfaction, the new situation was to be used to develop possible new business models using digital tools and fundamentally increase customer loyalty. The general idea could be summarized as follows: more agility through digital services.

Is it possible to design projects with open results?

That is not easy.

Especially not if the initial situation was an acute crisis in very recent times. The threatening dynamics made open- ended thinking almost impossible. So you can only move forward from success to success.

This time the project definition was more differentiated. It was not about acute crisis management, but rather about a strategy to consolidate the position, or better, a further expansion using the prevailing crisis scenarios in Brazil. It was clear, however, that no enthusiastic adventures should be undertaken and that any strategic assumption must be robustly backed by operational-tactical measures. The implementation of these tactical measures should then also define the next steps or be used to adapt the strategy.

We have been applying the Design Thinking mindset for many years, evaluating with every project. We see again and again that Design Thinking is probably one of the most important aspects on the path of corporate cultural change in a transformation. Therefore, we come to the project with the evolutionary knowledge of Design Thinking and implement this way of thinking. It should take root and stay in the project and in the client company.