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TRAINING in HUMAN-CENTRED INNOVATION
No worries, we can help. We make sure that your organisation gets the skills, tools and mindset necessary to tackle today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. Our hands-on Design Thinking trainings are building on our core principles: Empathy, Agility and Collaboration.
Service Design Innovation
Only your users experience your services and interfaces as a whole and are able to identify missing parts. Service Design is about taking a radical user perspective. This way you can guarantee that all pieces build up to a consistent and seamless experience.
Future of work Assessment
Baloise is looking to continuously fill the innovation funnel and generate ideas with a greater fit to market developments. In line with this, one strategic approach has been the launch of a Think Tank which conducts research, identifies new opportunity spaces and on a bi-weekly basis sends insights to (Baloise) employees’ inboxes. This is meant to foster more radical and specific ideas coming from across the organisation.
Traditionally, offering private loans is perceived as bringing various challenges. To attract new customers and harvest it’s existing customer base as well as to explore if it was possible to shift the negative image of personal loans in Switzerland, bob Finance asked us to conduct broad-based customer research.
The Social Services team of the City of Zürich wanted to refine and improve the existing renting-service from a customer’s perspective, learning about and applying Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking methods in parallel.
Smide, a mobility startup offering an E-bike rental, wanted to transit their business offering from a free-floating system to a station-based bike rental system and find out how to best implement the charging solution.
Ringier, alongside the rest of the media industry, are facing many challenges from difficulties to track and monetise content to novel forms of disruption raised by technology giants; could Blockchain, a revolutionary technology that enables transparency, collaboration, and security, create value-adding solutions to such challenges?
Switzerland's largest media group wanted to develop a new strategy & vision for its generalist classified and marketplace division as well as understanding how its portfolio of marketplaces could be developed within a 3-4 year timeframe.
Credit Suisse wanted to position itself as relevant for the digital age by offering a new banking solution for students which earlier research had suggested was too little and too late to be captured as new customers.
Brezelkönig wanted to gain a better understanding of its customers and their underlying needs, as well as explore if new digital channels, such as a pre-ordering app, could meet the diverse needs of its customers.
Neoperl wanted to find out how it could include employees’ feedback and insights to design a purposeful new building. The organisation wanted the new space to include not only an on-site cafeteria but to incorporate different space requirements that could fluidly adapt to the diverse needs of their employees.
ITC wanted to combine their internal know-how in the field of international trade with an exploratory innovation approach to be able to develop new ideas and rethink existing projects. Eager to introduce its employees to the agile method of Human-Centred Design, the Bootcamp555 initiative was launched.
Baloise wanted to grow the brand image of its mobility unit (Baloise Mobility), alongside testing a start-up programme to fill its innovation funnel with new opportunities. With these objectives in mind, we worked with Baloise Mobility to help them create their first ever accelerator programme.
GOWAGO was looking to gain insights on the attractiveness of discounts and how customers could respond to a new, all-in-one service that could be linked to a benefits program.
Many argue that clients of insurance companies are ageing and less prone to churn. With this in mind, Allianz was eager to find new solutions for its service offerings to attract a younger audience, who is often skeptical towards insurance solutions.
The exclusive alpine real estate company Andermatt Swiss Alps (ASA) is developing Andermatt into a first-class year-round destination. To stay ahead of the curve, stay customer-centric, and keep an eye on the future they approached Spark Works to conduct a Foresights Studies into the future of traveling to and living in the Alps.
The City of Zurich wanted to find a common system that would help school, kindergarten and daycare staff to easily report and then fix any maintenance issues. From a broken door knob to reporting graffiti, the city sought an easy to use tool that would actually be used by school and daycare personnel as well as janitorial staff.
To shape the future of mobility KTM, the biggest European motorcycle manufacturer, and the insurer Baloise collaborated to develop a new digital channel to offer KTM customers an affordable, better integrated and more delightful customer and insurance experience.
Swiss Food Research, an active Agro-Food innovation ecosystem supported by Innosuisse, builds bridges between research institutes and Swiss companies. With the overall goal to create radical ideas for the food industry they aimed to try out different formats and concepts. The MAKEathon was one of their first.
Unknown to most, Zurich’s Sechseläutenplatz is home to historic lake dwellings that are a UNESCO-World Heritage site. 10 years after the nomination the city’s archaeologists wanted to make the findings accessible to a wider audience through an AR app. Very little was known about what citizens and tourists would expect from such applications and how they would like to experience the 5000 years old village. Spark Works came in to help research and bring the app to life.
To ensure that its educational programs continuously address the diverse and fast changing industry-relevant qualification gaps and educational needs across all pillars and regions, this KIC (Knowledge Innovation Centre) sought to establish a common learning and education concept administrated by its “Professional School”.
Providing smart solutions enabling electricity grids to manage and monitor their infrastructure, Adaptricity wanted to switch to a license fee business model. Over time this would be responsible for 50% of the company revenues. This would require them to directly sell their monitoring software to their end-users (smart grid operators), and thus learn about their needs and expectations.
Based on its new company strategy, Siemens wanted to redesign its global leadership training program by educating employees worldwide and instilling a new agile mindset building on the Value Stream Mapping & JTBD (Jobs to be done) methodology.
The capability to attract and retain the best talents is essential for every organisation. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) realised that a new vision together with innovative processes and tools were required to bring their recruiting process to the next level. As a focus, they wanted to make sure that the benefits of working at IATA were clearly communicated to potential candidates.
A new management team sought a new, customer centric strategy for the bank. They needed an understanding of the pain points of their customers, the competitive landscape, the impact of FinTech, market trends and key behaviour to enable them to build innovative user-centric scenarios for the future of banking.
Prevention of infections and antibiotic resistance is crucial for the University Hospital of Zurich (USZ). Its research team constantly updates best practices to ensure prevention is carried out at every step of the patient journey, still infection rates could be lower. How can all USZ healthcare workers know what to do to prevent infections, and antibiotic resistance?
The old Innosuisse support formats to foster knowledge transfer and international collaboration between academia and industry in Switzerland, proved to cause bureaucratic structures and a significant amount of overhead costs, rather than measurable outcomes such as innovative ideas, concepts or products.
Blockchain is a buzzword and new technology that everyone feels they need to work with, but only very few actually understand what it is about, how it works and how they could apply it to generate value for their enterprise and customers.
To drive their vision of an innovative company culture forward, Allianz needed to train its people in Human-Centred Design and enable internal innovation coaches to plan, deliver and assess internal innovation projects.
Pro Juventute, a Swiss foundation supporting the rights and needs of children, wanted to modernise and redefine their iconic parent letter, which has provided Swiss parents and families with essential information for over forty years.
A Swiss reinsurance company wanted to explore the potential of a new market segment that is often rejected by insurance companies. To find viable solutions for those classed as “impaired lives”, they needed a complete 360° view of the needs and drivers of the main stakeholders involved in the journey.
Part of Baloise’s current business is based on traditional car insurance. Yet with industries opening up and successful services increasingly relying on collaborations among companies, Baloise needed to know which areas are likely to dominate the future of mobility and who its potential partners might be.
The City of Zurich recently opted for an Open Government Data strategy. During its implementation, city officials discovered the data was highly dispersed internally, and the departments were unsure of which data could be published.
Multinational cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company, Philip Morris International (PMI), wanted to transform their innovation culture. They have the ambition to create in-house capabilities to lead their innovation efforts and face the fast changing environment that they have to confront with an agile and customer-centric approach.
Digitalisation is quickly reshaping the way we teach and learn. Schools like the ZHAW are being challenged to re-evaluate their core structures, and implement an approach to education that enables them to become a future-oriented institution.
Governmental institutions at all levels play a major role in shaping our society. Spark Works can work together with these organisations to address challenges around affordability, transparency and the ever-evolving complexities of an uncertain world.
Decreased travel due to environmental concerns, and more recently global pandemics, pose serious threats on the airline industry. Spark Works wants to work with leading airlines to develop innovative solutions and practices that meet these issues head-on.
The Swiss Alps is one of the most visited regions in Europe. Ski resorts and ski installations need new strategies to face the challenges that come with dense crowds. Spark Works can help these businesses understand and anticipate the needs of their customer base so they are better able to serve them.
