Yesterday an energetic third breakfast session finished a series of meet-ups that VanBerlo and RevelX organized for their joint relations.

The topic: “How to design winning business models in a digital world”, generated a great deal of interest on all three occasions and we look back on an awesome collaboration between VanBerlo and RevelX.

Many companies struggle to capture the opportunities of the digital world. It’s not evident how to generate true customer value and to capture all opportunities. Digital is seen a great enabler, but how can it fuel and accelerate your strategic ambition? How can you best envision and craft your future value propositions and, not to forget, what does this mean for your organization?

The challenges and opportunities in digital transformation were explained on the basis of two inspiring cases from the daily practice of RevelX and VanBerlo.

These two cases share five overarching take-aways that we would like to share with you in case you’ve missed our sessions.

1. Develop a holistic view to assess your business

Envision new value propositions through customer insight and design thinking. This holistic view can be obtained by performing design research in the field and map the complete value chain and all stakeholders. Only with such a holistic view you can identify all the opportunities for value creation with digital technology.

2. Design the system first

Think in digital platform opportunities, not solely connected products. Instead of jumping into developing a connected product right away, first think about the (eco)system that is required to deliver the envisioned value. This makes it possible to define what role the product needs to play within a system and allows for smarter strategic choices during the actual product development.

3. Build an innovative organization

by investing in the digital competences of your people and creating the right culture. Only with the right culture, processes and people an organization can keep the never-ending process of innovation going. Innovation is not a one-off thing, it’s a way of thinking and working.

4. Take a service design approach

In the digital world you have a unique opportunity to engage with your customer differently. A service design approach helps to see which digital solution a company should bring to their customers. Because in the end it is about the problem you solve and not the product you sell.

5. Create Minimal Viable Products with a promise

To enable fast validated learning and future scaling. Making an MVP that is ready for the future and that can be updated remotely once the innovation process continues after the product is released in the field.

During each of the breakfast sessions there was a very interesting dialogue with the audience, and this has taught us a lot. These interactive discussions generated many insights on their challenges and lessons learned with respect to digital transformation. We were delighted by the enthusiasm of our audience, which once again underlines the importance of fundamentally rethinking your business model to make sure your business can succeed in today’s challenging digital world.

A massive thank you goes out to everyone involved. We hope to see you again at one of our next events. Don’t hesitate to get in touch!