Design Thinking for Innovation – Assignment : Using the Mind mapping tool to compete as a Deli   Store in retail business 

 Challenge & Selection 

 As business owner of a local cheese & wine shop within a side street of an urban neighborhood   outside the city center I offer premium wine and gourmet alpine products . The products being    offered are different varieties of mountain cheese as well as air - dried sausage and ham products .   Furthermore , we sell exclusive wines . All products come directly from the manufactures themselves . 

 As the online business increases and big food retailers exploit the market , we currently suffer a crises   in the retail segment , facing a drop of both , clients and sales . Therefore , my team and I decided to   find out what features would make the store more attractive for potential clients as well as the   customer base . In consequence , the challenge is to attract more customers to both visit the shop and   encourage them to buy more items to increase sales . The goal is to compete successfully against   online competition and bigger food retailers . 

 We favour mind mapping because it is an intuitive and creative process . Also , it makes things more   visual and engaging . Personally speaking I can use the mind mapping process not only to look into my   mind separately , but in the minds of our customers to capture and represent perfectly the current   reality and environment .    Moreover , we focus on detailed customer meaning instead of assumptions we make . This being said ,   we can extract the ethnographical insight from the data we gain to emerge patterns and insights of   consumers . That gives us the opportunity to achieve our goals to establish design criteria for the idea   generation , identifying the challenges and opportunities for improvement and solutions . Obviously ,   we want to gain more insides to adapt into a successful future . 

 Application & Insight 

 We started the process with some ethnographic interviews of random costumers asking them   directly what we could do making the store and its products more appealing . Also , we analyzed the   latest quality data such as sales of the last consecutive months . 

 Instead of holding a yard sale demonstrated in the tutorial video section , we arranged an event at   the store itself . For that event , we equipped the store with the information we gathered so far ,   placing it all over the show room . 

 In a first step , we invited 15 of our regular customers to come and join us for an evening program .   We asked for their creativity and intuition for about three hours . After a welcome speech in which   we introduced our intentions we wanted them to wander around by their own to get a first   impression . 

 At the same time , we wanted them to mark everything on sticky notes what appeals shoppers . And ,    of course what does not attract attention . Furthermore , they could note aspects , which they missed   on both , the product side as well as interieur details or for example customer service . 

 Afterwards we divided them into teams of five to discuss and review the exploration of what they   think is positive . Also , what they dislike about the shop . 

 We let them stick their notes on a wall in a separated room inside the shop we had cleared for the   event . The goal was to present all the notes in one clearly arranged place . 

 Finally , we brought the consumers together to discuss the identified insights related to each cluster   and let them look for connections in between the groups . The goal was to turn the observations into   insights . 

 After all , we got deep insights and a much better understanding of our customers and what they   want and need to come around more often . Those insights helped us to create design criteria . From   now on , we could use these design criteria to generate ideas for our retail shop . 

 For example , we found out that costumers prefer raw milk products instead of pasteurized cheese .   Moreover , we actually figured out insight that consumers favor meat products of beef , boar and   deer . Less in demand are pig products we had offered so far . 

 What we also realized was that costumers would love to know more about the production process   itself to learn about why buying a premium cheese product or wine makes a difference to purchase   an average cheese product in a regular supermarket . Consequently , we plan to set up regularly   exclusive cheese & wine tastings , focusing on the information and insider knowledge we have of the   products itself . Combining both , have the customer get a better understanding and knowledge about   the products , and having them spending a good time in our location . 

 Furthermore , we discovered that within our product segments , our customers tend to buy more   cheese and wine and less meat . This is why we consider to extend our cheese assortment and   reducing the meat supply at the same time . 

 Summed up the situation , it was crucial to identify what we were unaware about so far . Getting the   opinions and ideas of our customers will open up more opportunities to solve problems , both to   compete with online shops and to gain more potential buyers into the store . All in all , it will help us   significantly to step into the idea generation to get on track again for the benefit of our customers . 

 Approach 

 If I had the choice , I would definitely go for this approach again as I think it is an appropriate tool .   Nevertheless , I would invite more shoppers to our event to get an even deeper understanding of the   consumer´s needs and to benefit from a broader consumer horizon . Furthermore , I would ask the   attendees to visualize their notes to set free even more creativity for future products and events . 

 Anyways , what we realized was that the most valuable thing we could gain is to know about the   minds of our customers . That is the way to discover our consumers and turn the insights into learning   to improve both , our product assortment , customer service for example with exclusive events and   improving our comeback rate of costumers . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Design Thinking for Innovation – Assignment : Using the Mind mapping tool to compete as a Deli   Store in retail business 

 Challenge & Selection 

 As business owner of a local cheese & wine shop within a side street of an urban neighborhood   outside the city center I offer premium wine and gourmet alpine products . The products being    offered are different varieties of mountain cheese as well as air - dried sausage and ham products .   Furthermore , we sell exclusive wines . All products come directly from the manufactures themselves . 

 As the online business increases and big food retailers exploit the market , we currently suffer a crises   in the retail segment , facing a drop of both , clients and sales . Therefore , my team and I decided to   find out what features would make the store more attractive for potential clients as well as the   customer base . In consequence , the challenge is to attract more customers to both visit the shop and   encourage them to buy more items to increase sales . The goal is to compete successfully against   online competition and bigger food retailers . 

 We favour mind mapping because it is an intuitive and creative process . Also , it makes things more   visual and engaging . Personally speaking I can use the mind mapping process not only to look into my   mind separately , but in the minds of our customers to capture and represent perfectly the current   reality and environment .    Moreover , we focus on detailed customer meaning instead of assumptions we make . This being said ,   we can extract the ethnographical insight from the data we gain to emerge patterns and insights of   consumers . That gives us the opportunity to achieve our goals to establish design criteria for the idea   generation , identifying the challenges and opportunities for improvement and solutions . Obviously ,   we want to gain more insides to adapt into a successful future . 

 Application & Insight 

 We started the process with some ethnographic interviews of random costumers asking them   directly what we could do making the store and its products more appealing . Also , we analyzed the   latest quality data such as sales of the last consecutive months . 

 Instead of holding a yard sale demonstrated in the tutorial video section , we arranged an event at   the store itself . For that event , we equipped the store with the information we gathered so far ,   placing it all over the show room . 

 In a first step , we invited 15 of our regular customers to come and join us for an evening program .   We asked for their creativity and intuition for about three hours . After a welcome speech in which   we introduced our intentions we wanted them to wander around by their own to get a first   impression . 

 At the same time , we wanted them to mark everything on sticky notes what appeals shoppers . And ,    of course what does not attract attention . Furthermore , they could note aspects , which they missed   on both , the product side as well as interieur details or for example customer service . 

 Afterwards we divided them into teams of five to discuss and review the exploration of what they   think is positive . Also , what they dislike about the shop . 

 We let them stick their notes on a wall in a separated room inside the shop we had cleared for the   event . The goal was to present all the notes in one clearly arranged place . 

 Finally , we brought the consumers together to discuss the identified insights related to each cluster   and let them look for connections in between the groups . The goal was to turn the observations into   insights . 

 After all , we got deep insights and a much better understanding of our customers and what they   want and need to come around more often . Those insights helped us to create design criteria . From   now on , we could use these design criteria to generate ideas for our retail shop . 

 For example , we found out that costumers prefer raw milk products instead of pasteurized cheese .   Moreover , we actually figured out insight that consumers favor meat products of beef , boar and   deer . Less in demand are pig products we had offered so far . 

 What we also realized was that costumers would love to know more about the production process   itself to learn about why buying a premium cheese product or wine makes a difference to purchase   an average cheese product in a regular supermarket . Consequently , we plan to set up regularly   exclusive cheese & wine tastings , focusing on the information and insider knowledge we have of the   products itself . Combining both , have the customer get a better understanding and knowledge about   the products , and having them spending a good time in our location . 

 Furthermore , we discovered that within our product segments , our customers tend to buy more   cheese and wine and less meat . This is why we consider to extend our cheese assortment and   reducing the meat supply at the same time . 

 Summed up the situation , it was crucial to identify what we were unaware about so far . Getting the   opinions and ideas of our customers will open up more opportunities to solve problems , both to   compete with online shops and to gain more potential buyers into the store . All in all , it will help us   significantly to step into the idea generation to get on track again for the benefit of our customers . 

 Approach 

 If I had the choice , I would definitely go for this approach again as I think it is an appropriate tool .   Nevertheless , I would invite more shoppers to our event to get an even deeper understanding of the   consumer´s needs and to benefit from a broader consumer horizon . Furthermore , I would ask the   attendees to visualize their notes to set free even more creativity for future products and events . 

 Anyways , what we realized was that the most valuable thing we could gain is to know about the   minds of our customers . That is the way to discover our consumers and turn the insights into learning   to improve both , our product assortment , customer service for example with exclusive events and   improving our comeback rate of costumers .
### Output: 