Increasing computing power, networking capabilities, rapid developments in information and communication technologies have made digital technologies part of our lives and changed the dynamics in the society and in the business world. (Demirkan, Spohrer, & Welser, 2016; Svahn, Henfridsson, & Yoo, 2009). While presenting numerous opportunities for organizations, digital technologies lowered the threshold in the market for new entrants. Therefore, change has become imperative for large organizations in order to survive. This profound and accelerating transformation of business activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities brought by digital technologies is called digital transformation (Demirkan, Spohrer, & Welser, 2016). Digital transformation presents a novel and complex challenge for organizations regardless which industry they belong to. It is imperative for all the organizations to embrace the deep-rooted, never ending digital journey for their survival. However, going through this journey is not easy for organizations in highly competitive and rapidly changing business environments. Clearly, it is impossible for companies to respond to all the technological developments happening in the world. But how should the companies choose the right technology and how should they apply it? How can they reap the benefits of these technologies in favor of their organization and customers? On the other hand, brand, is an established concept in the literature. It is acknowledged by the literature that it could be a powerful tool for organizations in selecting, guiding and maintaining strategic directions for organizations (Mosmans & van der Vorst, 1998). However, the role of an organization’s brand in digital transformation is not addressed in the literature. This literature gap formed the foundation of this graduation project and was executed in collaboration with Deloitte Digital, a creative digital consultancy which helps large organizations in their digital transformation journeys and striving for acquiring new capabilities and ways of thinking. Exploration of the brand identity of the large organizations in digital transformation and bridging the insights to Deloitte Digital context provided them a new perspective over the digital transformation projects. In order to be able to enable Deloitte Digital consultants in gaining and applying brand-aware perspective on digital transformation projects, “Digital Ambitions” workshops has designed. This workshop, aims to facilitate the creation of future vision and exploration of the possibilities in different domains of digital transformation. Finally, this study has contributed to the research domains of brand and digital transformation in bridging the gap between those by proposing links between them. Additionally, a new perspective for Deloitte Digital is provided that illustrates a competitive advantage in differentiating their approach towards the clients.

Accenture Interactive, the marketing arm of international consultancy Accenture, has been created to address the evolving needs of their clients in the field of design and technology. As a result, Accenture Interactive now consists of several pillars that together can deliver a meaningful end-to-end experience. Delivering value to the client and the organization in projects by collaborating across pillars are called cross-pillar projects. However, Accenture Interactive encounters that the current collaboration between the different pillars in client projects is not at the level they would like it to be. In line with this observation, the purpose of this thesis was to explore what goes wrong in the current cross-pillar projects, with the aim to reveal the influencing factors of these projects. Therefore, this thesis aimed to improve the cross- pillar performance by defining the definition of cross- pillar working in the context of Accenture Interactive, and resolving the barriers towards the envisioned level of cross-pillar working. As a result, an integrated solution was created, consisting of improvements in existing communication channels and adding a proposition development approach to the existing initiation process. This was examined by conducting twelve in-depth interviews with different pillars, from six completed cross-pillar projects. The interviews defined the context of cross-pillar work in Accenture Interactive and the elements that make up all the studied cross-pillar projects. Then, a deeper look was taken at differences emerged between the performance of the studied projects. This led to the problem statement that the performance of a cross-pillar project is influenced by the presence of awareness and willingness in the initiation of the projects. A deeper study was conducted to determine which barriers are present during initiation preventing awareness and willingness. The design goal, was to develop means and approaches that could help employees to facilitate cross-pillar collaboration during the initiation of new projects. To facilitate implementation, it is proposed that existing activities, like Chapter Zero and Friday morning meetings, could help serve that purpose. The end goal of this approach is to learn to initiate cross-pillar projects by experiencing how to bring value to clients by collaborating between pillars. Furthermore, a roadmap is created to guide Accenture Interactive in bridging the gap between the results of this project and the new practice of cross-pillar working. This roadmap aligns the different development processes within Accenture Interactive, reflects how this thesis’s outcomes fit within the intended timeline, and provides direction to Accenture Interactive’s vision.

The research was performed in order to design a roadmap for transforming the departure hall, by researching the way KLM could improve the customer departure journey. Hall capacity needs to grow to accommodate for an expected increase in passenger numbers: for welcoming, waiting, check-in, and baggage processing. Design roadmapping methodology is used for performing initial context research, and for mapping user value drivers, new ideas for departure, and pathways to a future vision.  The company context is researched by discovering KLM values and by mapping stakeholders in departure. Passengers are the primary stakeholders who interact with staff at the airport, and perform check-in and bag drop tasks in the departure hall. By mapping flow, user routing in the journey is made clear. By combining these insights with literature on waiting, passenger behavior, the perception of waiting, and an action mapping exercise, a journey overview is created. In order to truly understand customer journeys, interviewing with passengers was arranged in the live environment. Journey mapping yielded a journey experience overview and four personas in departure with specific service requirements, motivations for assistance, and needs. Market research in the form of a competitor analysis and DEPEST research provides the trend patterning needed for future visioning. A problem definition of current departure at the airport is established by reflecting on the airline's ambition to be most customer-centric, efficient, and innovative.  Most important in design roadmapping are user value drivers; the unmet needs of future customers. Understanding these needs allows forward-looking enterprises to transform processes and services in time to create new value. By introducing the analogous customer experience of upcoming seamless grocery shopping, the design team engaged in a value mapping exercise yielding five key user value drivers: convenience, comprehension, choice, confirmation, and care. An envisioned future departure interaction is explained by imagining the functional and emotional benefits of future solutions according to these five value drivers. A three component future vision statement is provided. While the first half of the research focused on doing research and envisioning an improved future departure, the second part is dedicated to designing the roadmap. At this halfway point of the research, a switch from journey touchpoint research to changed strategic processes for new business development is made. Here, a roadmap offering a strategic pathway to the future is needed.  As the five user value drivers were found, what remains is mapping of new ideas for departure, and mapping of pathways to the future vision. For idea mapping, a tech scouting is performed in order to see what technology is available and to learn how these are relevant in reaching the vision. An integral ideation day yielded eight idea concepts spread over three horizons. The ideas aim at simplifying touchpoints, offering journey guidance, providing departure certainty and facilitate purchasing, shortening touchtime, and offering true care and recognition. Implications of horizon developments for a Staff of Tomorrow, and Operations of Tomorrow are explained.  These five themes in the mapped ideas shape the pathways to the three component future vision, or alternatively: the roads to follow to achieve the ambition. Here, the decision is made to construct two roadmaps for flexibility in creative dialogue: a strategic roadmap which quickly communicates vision outlook and strategic themes, and a tactical roadmap displaying full background information and concept idea information.  The two roadmaps are introduced and the approach and design choices are explained. A reflection on requirements set at the halfway point of the research is provided. Finally, the research is concluded by means of a discussion which provides a brief summary of the work, states the implications of the research, and suggests four follow-up projects, as well as future design sprint HCWs for moving forward with Departure of Tomorrow.  The thesis concludes with a reflection on the value of creative dialogue and roadmapping at KLM, and a personal reflection on the project. 

Flyco is a large airline company who has built its strategy emphasising on operational excellence. Yet, since competitors can now achieve similar results, they have expanded their strategy to offering excellent customer experience too, resulting in the foundation of the Customer Experience (CX) department. Nevertheless, Flyco notices their NPS is not rising above 50. One of the reasons is the silo-driven lay-out a typical corporate as Flyco has, where teams lack knowledge sharing. A way to bridge these silos is by using cross-functional collaboration, where multiple distinct functions come together to tackle complex problems with a multidisciplinary perspective. This results in the research question: “How can Flyco improve the consistent implementation of customer needs throughout the customer journey through more effective collaboration between the different teams of the CX department?” During the research, multiple perspectives are taken into consideration. At first, the connection between collaboration and customer needs is defined to learn why the stated claim is currently a problem. Thereafter, the current way of collaboration between the different teams is reflected on by means of seven in-depth interviews with employees. Simultaneously, a literature review gives insights into what way effective cross-functional collaboration should be framed and which elements are essential. However, since multiple elements have a considerable effect on cross-functional collaboration, a decision needs to be made for a focal point to realise effective change at one, or a few of these elements. A quantitative analysis, filled in by the CX department, gives insight into where the department believes they could improve. The focus is put where most progress can be made for the CX department. This results in a focus on effective knowledge sharing between the different teams through more effective and open communication to lead the focus within the department towards the group. Plenty literature has been written in knowledge management including multiple tools and methods. Nevertheless, earlier attempts in implementing a new knowledge management method have failed due to unacceptance of implementation by the employees. Therefore the behaviour of the employees needs to change. Consequently, literature in behaviour change is reviewed, resulting in four behaviour change techniques most appropriate for this problem. Five concepts are established through combining cocreation insights on the behaviour change techniques with knowledge management tools and methods. These concepts in unison form a system for a profound knowledge management, which ideally are all developed and applied. However, for the purpose of this thesis, the concept ‘Community of Practice (CoP)’ is chosen for further development. The concept focuses on knowledge sharing through a group, sharing a domain/passion, a practice, and a community, coming together to discuss a question or statement stated by one of the teams of the CX department. People can apply when they are interested to learn more or have gained expertise in this area. The group of employees form a community group where they run through five steps to get an agreement on the topic. The results will be shared with the department for knowledge sharing.

Money is a worry for many people, and one of the main factor to create well-being in society. Nowadays, 44% of young adults, say that money is their main reason for suffering from stress (Pew Research Center, 2020). Most of the young adults (62%) don't feel financially stable and about two-thirds state that they are living short on money, from pay-day to pay-day (CNBC, 2019). They usually have student debt, a harder time getting a mortgage and a permanent contract and on average fewer earnings than previous generations. The problem of money and young adults is very common and could be scalable all over the world. In this project, the target group and the context were based on The Netherlands, due to the changing-situation nowadays of higher levels of debt, lower levels of income and difficulties to buy a get a mortgage, buy a house, or get a permanent contract (Nibud, 2019). Research shows that the correlation with the money that these people are earning is very little. It’s not a problem of income in most of the cases, but a problem of behaviour. The behavioural model of Fogg (Fogg, 2009) explains that new behaviour is developed when people feel motivated up to a certain degree and take action to include that certain behaviour in their everyday life. I wanted to provide young adults with a solution that combined motivation, triggers and ability. A lack of motivation and trust in financial services and of tools to create better money behaviour with a focus on the long-term goals for millennials was found. This graduation project has the goal of helping young adults with low financial capabilities that are in the contemplation stage (Prochaska 1979; Prochaska and DiClemente 1983) to change their current financial behaviour for one that improves their financial health in the future by offering tailored solutions. The whole project followed a double-diamond process (TU Delft, 2019) and was performed following a user-centred design and strategic design approach. For this project Research consisted of user and context research. Including activities like literature analysis, user and expert interviews, online surveys, benchmark analysis of competitors, creative sessions and desk analysis. These activities were useful to understand the Target group on a deeper level. The research phase studied the young adult's ambitions, problems, goals, values and needs about finances, as well as their behavioural, financial, demographical and cultural context. The user research insights combined with the contextual research insights were analysed and combined with a result of a problem definition and a design direction. The design direction looked into the use of Artificial Intelligence and social features to support people to create better money behaviour. The design direction was framed together with the design goal and vision. As a design vision, the financial journey was compared to a car journey and the solution of a navigation app indicated inspiring qualities and affordances to use as a starting point in the new phase of the project: ideation. The ideation phase consisted of a creative session, a definition of the key experiences and a creation of several concepts that after being tested and iterated in different levels of fidelity, lead to the final design. Finally, the report finishes with a definition of the final concept: SARA.AI, that supports young adults to become financially free by offering user-tailored solutions. SARA is a user-centred financial robot-advisor that is personalised and always available for the user, giving real-time information of the financial situation, and focused on improving the financial behaviour of the people. It’s about substituting the experience of having a financial advisor by a service which is user-centred designed, accessible, and smarter. SARA helps people by the use of three core experiences: Setting either spending limits or saving goals every month for the users, visualising the daily/monthly progress on a roadmap showing the future financial goals and the estimated time of arrival and using the power of social rewards and achievements to motivate users to keep improving. SARA.AI means financial freedom. It is about giving the users the power to live the life that they want. To choose their goals, the way to reach them, and to take control of their lives. Not only for people with knowledge in finances but for everyone.

This master thesis is written for the master program Strategic Product Design with the Belgian company Barco NV as a client. At the beginning, the main objective was to gain a better understanding on the current situation of the organization around foresight activities, their barriers and challenges. The aim was to later develop a solution that could help them to overcome those challenges discovered and to have a more proactive attitude towards the future. Barco NV is a well-known technology company with a tradition as a hardware manufacturer. Barco is currently going through a digital transformation and counts on a renewed strategy that also considers customer centricity and business innovation as starting points for innovation as relevant as technology. However, in practice this is much more complex, and the firm is step by step evolving into that ideal. The company tends to end up focusing mostly in the short term. This happens, among other reasons, because of a lack of skills, a non-tangible or workable company vision, and the self-pressure on meeting their economic plans. This causes the proposition of short-term businesses and therefore limits the explorative attitude in the firm. To support in this challenge, the initial phase of the thesis was focused on gaining a better understanding on the current challenges in Barco around foresight activities. As such, literature study in corporate foresight and some of its methods like scenario planning was employed. In parallel, internal research based on interviews with Barco employees gave the first keys to discover the barriers that the firm was facing and the feeling towards them. Thanks to the research done and the insights gained in Barco, the focus was on defining and co-creating a workshop. This workshop would enable Barco teams to shape future scenarios and improve their foresight skills. However, due to certain events that were taking place in Barco, this solution couldn’t be pursued and a new opportunity emerged. The Scenario Creation workshop was upgraded into a theoretical framework, which was developed with the input of three technology corporates and the recommendations of two consultants. All these professionals had links and personal interest in topics around innovation, foresight, design thinking and strategy. This framework was created to support Barco in having a better and holistic understanding on the business context in which the firm operates and its surroundings. In this way, it will help them in anticipating to changes in the three horizons of innovation. At the same time, it brings a change in mindset where the validation of hypotheses about future innovations plays a crucial role by involving external experts and end users in the scenario creation process. Finally, it brings a better way to communicate innovation and to test future scenarios: externally, to get them challenged by experts, and internally, to create a shared language for innovation. The foresight framework is characterized for combining design thinking principles, like user-centeredness, iteration, validation, creativity, inspiration and abstract and concrete thinking, with deep knowledge in foresight activities and scenario planning.

In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the vast impact of the fast fashion and textile industry. Over the years the fashion industry has been abundantly criticised over its limited consideration of social and environmental issues and the widespread impact that these have. By now, textile creation itself has a larger carbon footprint than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. The biggest change can be made within the creation of these textiles. This is where Byborre and the Window of Textile opportunities (WoTO) come into play. This project is executed in collaboration with Byborre: a frontrunner in creating transparent and responsible textiles and trying to change the way the textile industry operates. As part of their mission they launched WoTO: a platform and exposition that connects Byborre’s transparent textile supply-chain in order to collaboratively solve the industry’s sustainability challenges and aims to educate on responsible textile creation and use. This raised the following question that served as the kick-off for the project: “How can WoTO educate, inspire and connect textile users, academic and industry professionals in order to drive collaborative, transparent and responsible textile innovation and creation?” In order to find out, the project took a user-centred approach: the user’s perspective is leading in order to gain insight. User research consisting out of qualitative interviews, user-journeys and persona’s along with literature research on open and networked innovations was performed. The analysis of this research phase shows the complexity of interdisciplinary collaboration and the problems that users experience within WoTO: The concept of WoTO lacks clarity, resulting in different interpretations and expectations of the platform. The network partners experience a lack of guidance, facilitation and moderation which makes it hard to keep overview and manage expectations. Due to a lack of, - or unsuitable collaborative systems and tools it becomes challenging for the partners to stay involved, connected and aligned. This consequently results in an unclear narrative for the visitors. Based on ideation, co-creation and evaluation with stakeholders a service design vision for WoTO is created to alleviate this problem: The service design offers WoTO partners an accessible way to engage with the Window of Textile Opportunities and stimulates and facilitates interdisciplinary working and communication within, and outside of the WoTO network. Decreasing the gap between the textile supply-chain and brands/consumers. By doing so aiming to strengthen WoTO’s primary functions: to forge interdisciplinary connections & educate on responsible creation and transparency. It does so by offering guidance, orchestration and structure through various touch-points that support the the newly constructed collaborative model and user flow. These touch-points can be attributed to four themes: Stimulate engagement Create uniformity in collaboration Guide towards alignment and change Decrease the gap between the supply-chain and brands/consumers To implement the service successfully a roadmap is given to help prioritise activities for the short term implementation. In order to make this possible it is recommended to further develop and test the service and keep the partners involved in this process. Ultimately, active partner orchestration and community management is essential to WoTO’s operations and interdisciplinary work. If not performed, partners can’t align and the service won’t be able facilitate its purpose.

De Rijke Noordzee (DRN) is a Dutch organization with a mission to enhance nature utilizing the opportunities which offshore wind farms offer. The organization is currently working on several nature enhancement projects in offshore wind farms in the Dutch part of the North Sea. However, DRN’s mission to enhance biodiversity does not stop at the borders of the North Sea. Therefore, I explored in this report the opportunities for DRN to collaborate with the North Sea countries in offshore wind farms (OWFs). To find opportunities for DRN, I started with an analysis of De Rijke Noordzee by interviewing employees of DRN. Based on this analysis, I found two critical needs regarding international collaboration. The need for a strategy on international collaboration between North Sea countries and a way to share knowledge on nature enhancement. Furthermore, I identified three valuable strengths of DRN: 1) connector between science, industry and government, 2) practical performer in nature enhancement projects, 3) opportunity focussed. Thereafter, I created future contexts on Enhancing biodiversity in the North Sea by 2030 with the so called ViP method. I selected the most promising two future contexts which align with DRN’s needs and strengths: A) North Sea cooperation plays a significant role in educating people about nature topics and B) Nature education starts by engaging locally. Based on the two analyses, I primarily focussed on the development of a strategy on North Sea collaboration (including looking for a country to start knowledge sharing with). Furthermore, on the development of ideas for DRN to share knowledge on nature enhancement projects by engaging locally. To assess the North Sea countries, I built a decision tree based on a list of factors which influences the suitability for DRN to share knowledge with this country. The North Sea countries Germany, Denmark, UK and Belgium appeared to be suitable for collaboration from 2024 on, where Germany has the highest score. Furthermore, France and Norway might be suitable to share knowledge with in the future. To come up with different ideas on sharing knowledge on nature enhancement by engaging locally, I organized multiple brainstorm sessions. Four ideas were selected for DRN which create the highest impact and at the same time acquire low effort to be implemented in 2024. Consequently, I formulated a strategy on how to approach the North Sea collaboration to enhance biodiversity by 2030. This strategy is illustrated in a roadmap including selected ideas for horizon 1. The strategy is summarized as following: Horizon 1: Share knowledge with Germany by engaging locally while: eating OWF seafood in restaurants, walking along the coast line or joining a music festival. Horizon 2: Share and gain knowledge with and from Denmark, the UK and Belgium. Horizon 3: Scale knowledge with France and Norway. Besides the developed strategy, the decision tree is a structured tool for DRN to evaluate countries for collaboration in the future. Together with DRN, I discovered how the decision can be feasible, viable and desirable for them. As a result a poster was developed to inspire DRN employees. Besides, the decision tree is valuable in acquiring new funding and informing new and current stakeholders. In addition to these outcomes for DRN, I discovered the contribution for Accenture. Together with fellow design consultants from Accenture, I explored the use of the ViP method within Accenture. I organized a brainstorm session to discuss the potential value. The session resulted in a positive response towards a VIP by a majority of my colleagues. Therefore, I designed a guide to integrate the ViP method within Accenture.

This thesis explores what it takes to make innovation at ING’s PACE accelerator more effective. PACE is ING’s innovation methodology, combining design thinking, agile working and the lean start-up approach into one whole. Within ING’s corporate accelerator track PACE is used to develop disruptive value propositions. Case-study research shows that the eighteen weeks described in guides to develop a solution from problem exploration up until a validated minimum viable product recurrently fails to be met. A major variable affecting the development time required is the elaborateness of PACE. When joining the accelerator, a multitude of guides condense to about 150 pages on innovation in the PACE accelerator. Twenty interviews with PACE coaches and intrapreneurs indicate that this way of describing innovative practice is too elaborate for new innovators to grasp. Intrapreneurs struggle to understand their design process as the theory seems too linear to unlock the full potential of creative divergence and to react to emerging insights from user-tests. A literature study shows that intrapreneurial skills are vital for the effectiveness of innovation. To achieve success, intrapreneurs need to become more skilled at balancing the five design activities of formulating, representing, moving, evaluating and managing. To conduct these activities, intrapreneurs benefit from reflexive practice on their use of innovation methodology. Based on design expertise theory, reflection on an intrapreneur’s design process allows for frequent transitions between the five design activities. By doing so, a higher cognitive level is fostered and tacit knowledge is turned into explicit learnings. This project envisions Dash, a platform for innovation learnings, bringing: - An integration of all PACE offerings through a visualised overview, - A low-key way of reflecting on the design process, and - An encouraging enviroment for innovators to share key insights By integrating these functions in an online platform, the possibilities of PACE analytics open a new way of exploring causes of less-effective innovation. Propagating a data-driven way of measuring intrapreneurial transformation. Although the current way of applying PACE is effective to generate disruptive solutions, its presentation through elaborate guides fails to resonate with intrapreneurial expectations. To better leverage intrapreneurial skills and make innovation more effective, I urge a personalised way of presenting PACE to allow for the autonomous design process exploration to flourish. From here, further research is required to assess the impact of intrapreneurial reflection on the effectiveness of innovation.

A strategy for Quooker to change its business model from offering a product to offering an outcome.

In 2020 our lives have been turned upside down by the outbreak of COVID-19. Working from home became the new standard, forcing the whole world into the biggest remote working experiment ever. The already existing remote working trend caught wind and changed the future of work to hybrid working in an office ecosystem. With a large number of companies and employees being inexperienced with hybrid working, new challenges and unfulfilled needs came to light. Literature research and more than 50 interviews with people from 31 companies were done to identify these challenges and develop a deep understanding of them. The three problem categories are asymmetrical communication, disconnected office ecosystem and unprepared companies. The decision was made to focus on asymmetrical communication in hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings are meetings with both online and in-office participants. These types of meetings make the online participants feel invaluable. This is caused by them not feeling involved and struggling to give input. In the long term this can lead to a decrease in employee satisfaction. Communication science helps explain why hybrid communication is hard, especially for the remote attendees. We humans collect countless information points from each other, which we unconsciously process and use for smooth and natural conversation. With video communication crucial information is filtered out, with eye contact and (selective) gaze, body language and life-sized scale being the most impactful ones. The goal of the project is to develop a product that enriches hybrid communication by supporting previously lost information. The technology developed in the design phase is coined artificial eye contact, which is based on the science of eye contact and selective gaze. Through validation experiments artificial eye contact was found to be successful in establishing similar effects. These effects are involvement, group dynamics, trust and convincement for eye contact, and more attention towards online participants, better group dynamics and a higher turn taking frequency for selective gaze. The retail price is 300 euros, but an additional data driven dashboard with a subscription model will still be validated. The product will form the foundation for a Startup, called Be There, with the mission of enabling natural and equal communication between meeting participants from different locations in the office ecosystem. Raising capital and patenting the technology are the next steps in the company planning. To conclude the project, validate the problem solution fit and partially validate the product market fit a pilot was done with Delta Capita, a technology consultancy from Amsterdam. The Be There One proved its value and collected the first Letter of Intent.

This thesis focuses on improving the performance of ventures through collaboration and knowledge sharing. Many huge multinational companies are struggling to keep their innovation funnel filled and to transform their ventures into successful new businesses. One of the challenges that Internal Corporate Ventures are facing is the lack of overview of which capabilities and what activities other ventures have or are performing. Using gamification, the Synergy platform aims to create more transparency in the venturing environment. The three main challenges to lack of collaborative behaviour in the venturing environment are tackled through the platform. These challenges are (1) finding knowledge, (2) finding experts and (3) sharing knowledge. However, there is still a catch-22 when introducing such a platform; “when there is not content, no one will use the platform, however, when no one is using the platform, no content will be added”. In order to breach this catch-22, two roadmaps have been designed. The engagement roadmap focuses on engaging users to actively contribute to the platform while the technical roadmap takes care of the feasibility of the platform.

This graduation project was initated in collaboration with Nibud to explore and imagine possibilities to facilitate a value-driven approach to financial decision-making. Several factors stress the relevance of this challenge, in particular regarding millennials as a target group. From an economic point of view, millennials are facing an affordability crisis (aging population, student debt, expensive housing, flexibile contracting and a looming recession). From a psychological perspective, a disparity seems to exist between what people expect will increase their wellbeing versus what types of consumption actually succeeds in doing so. Therefore, prioritizing saving over spending can be seen as an alternative way of sustainably increasing wellbeing. Millennials their early stage of life, digital nativity and strong sense of autonomy allows for opportunities to unburden them from financial hardship, yet the field of personal finance has seen surprisingly limited technological development aimed at this potential. With cash slowly being replaced by thoughtless payment, digitalization has left people with obscured and chronologically fragmented financial transactions that provide little feedback on their consumption pattern. This limited facilitation to prioritize saving over spending raises the threshold for attaining a financial overview up to a level that is only accessible to a happy few that is both highly motivated as well as tech-savvy. Furthermore, current solutions offer limited connection between short-term decisions and prospective long-term wellbeing (saving goals) and instead remain oriented towards retrospective micro-management. Lastly, commercial parties extracting sensitive personal data can count on public distrust, which is less of an issue for an independent foundation like Nibud. Using a ViP inspired approach, many factors were turned into six clusters that provided interesting directions in which to generate ideas on how Nibud can grab the opportunity of increasing millennials their agency to proactively prioritize saving over spending and thus unburden their lives from financial stress. The final design proposal is a participatory savings program called ‘meesparen’. Besides setting, tracking and comparing efforts at reaching saving goals, the application also supports a clear overview on recurring expenses, free spending and saving goals, which can be compared to peers that are motivated to start saving as well. The design was evaluated and redesigned to clearly demonstrate its potential to help millennials put money back into their hands.

Recently, Deloitte, Nibud and ING conducted a study on financial health in the Netherlands. As a next step, the involved parties have taken the initiative by creating the Financial Health Index (FHI), a tool to measure people’s financial health via fifteen questions. Deloitte is searching for new channels that they could use to stimulate the usage of the FHI and other initiatives that could create a positive impact on the financial health of the Netherlands. The retail channel is an important financial health channel were customers make the actual financial spending decisions, and could therefore be a promising new direction. This lead to the initial research question of this project: ““Is the retail channel a feasible and impactful way to reach end-users for the FHI, in order to help them improve their financial health?“ Because of the newness and abstractness of the topic, a qualitative research study was conducted. Nine highly experienced professionals in the retail industry were interviewed, giving an understanding of retailers attitude concerning customers’ financial health, as well as a possible implementation of the FHI and other interesting initiatives. This showed that in order for retailers to contribute, the FHI might not be the best solution, mainly due to the privacy constraints, the lack of use cases and missing business case. It was found that in order to get retailers to contribute, it might be better to offer more generic financial health solutions, that do not include the profiling of customers. Other existing initiatives were identified and analyzed, in the financial health domains “to loan”, “saving”, “spending”, “income” and “planning”. After a selection process and re-clustering, interesting clusters appeared. The requirements and wishes gained through the research showed that the area of “saving” seemed most promising to leverage the retail channel to improve customers’ financial health. In order to generate the biggest impact, it was chosen to focus on a retail saving program for Christmas, as “a lot of Dutch citizens struggle with financial health which increases in January, because they are not prepared for the extra retail expenses in December”. This was the problem statement starting the design phase. In the design phase, a research into the simulation of saving behavior was done. Next, two design iterations were conducted. The first iteration included a user research, through two user questionnaires. The second iteration included co-creation sessions with retailers. The focus of the design phase was on gaining insights into the options and best solutions for the four most important design choices for the retail saving program. These were the “saving goal”, “user journey channel”, “business model” and “user saving process”. The outcome is the “CareFree Christmas” initiative. This initiative allows customers to save for a specific retail product, while gaining a reward for their positive financial healthy saving behaviour. For retailers, this allows them to create a social impact by helping customers with their financial health, while at the same time increasing customer loyalty, purchase guarantee and a better cashflow.

This graduation project focuses on creating a meaningful connection between BMW and Indian consumers. The goal is to increase  understanding of the Indian market, as a means to strengthen BMW´s market  presence in India as well as emerge as the most preferred luxury car brand.  An extensive research has been conducted, including a field trip to India, to get an understanding of what ´makes Indians tick´. The insights generated by this study can help BMW substantially in catering in a more efficient and Indian market if desired by the brand.   As India has currently the second largest population in the world, with 1.41 billion people (India Population (2022) - Worldometer, n.d.), and a proportionately growing economy, many leading global players, such as BMW, are competing for prominence in the Indian automotive market (Chhibber & Gupta, 2021).  This explains the tremendous acceleration of the luxury automobile market in India, which finds itself racing to keep pace and cope with the increasing demand for premium models. The Indian luxury car market was valued at more than USD 1 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 1.54 billion by 2027 (India Luxury Car Market Size, Share, Report (2022 - 27), n.d.). Thus, although Indian may not be one of BMW´s high-volume single markets today, the potential for growth is high.   To flourish in a culture-sensitive country such as India, luxury companies must tread carefully and understand the Indian consumer, their values and needs. With the aim to fulfil this purpose and portray how this consumer understanding may translate into design, this graduation project seeks to find answer(s) for the following research question:   How to create a meaningful connection  between BMW and Indian consumers in terms of values and what kind of experience fuels that value?