Abstract

The industrial design profession has been long accredited for shaping the appearance and usability of a product. Since this description, current socio-economic conditions have influenced the specialisation of industrial design beyond graduation, encouraging many graduates in South Africa to start their own businesses. Along with ever-expanding research suggests that a key to business innovation and strategy lie within the creative thinking of the design field and the methodologies used, such as the now accomplished design thinking (in capitals). A methodology indigenous to the design praxis and gaining popular traction for its problem solving performance and guiding principles. Based on both these ideas, the research explores if industrial design entrepreneurs are utilising their design thinking ability and does it have an influence on the business model itself by giving a descriptive overview of how and where design thinking is being applied in the context of industrial design entrepreneurship. Raising the main question “How does design thinking give shape (applicable relationships) to industrial design related business models? The research was conducted using a qualitative case study methodology, based on an applied context approach. Data were gathered from three industrial design related cases: Thingking (design-maker consultants), Research Unit (a leather and luxury apparel company), and Nomanini, (provider of mobile solutions in the electronic domain). Directors of each company, who are affiliated and have a background in industrial design, participated in semi-structured interviews. The analysis involved a deductive qualitative content analysis approach, to identify emergent relationships between the operationalised categories of the Design Thinking and the Business Model Building Blocks concept. Design thinking in practice is complex and, in effect, is reliant on many interdependent factors. Complexity arises from the fact that the business model is in fact a result of design and the products and services are too. Thus, a narrative account needed to differentiate clearly between instances of design thinking guiding the business model design versus those influencing the product/service design.