So What Did You Say Service Design Is? Some lessons learned from our experience at KONE

Does it really make sense to build an internal service design competence? Will the effort, time and money invested bring a genuine benefit for the company? Is it a better solution building it in-house instead of buying it from a consultancy? These are all questions faced when the idea of using service design at KONE started, more than two years ago. And after going through quite a journey, I can convincingly answer: Yes. Yes. And yes. This is our journey.

The role of design at KONE

KONE – founded in 1910 – has more than 47,000 employees and net sales of €7.3 billion in 2014. Its vision is to deliver the best people-flow experience: enabling a smooth, optimised and enjoyable flow of people and goods within a building through solutions such as elevators, escalators, automatic doors and access control. While products are the most tangible and fast-growing business of KONE, services are the most stable part of the industry and provide the largest pool of opportunities.

Design at KONE has grown from within. In a span of about seven years, a competence was built and design became one of the three key strategic R&D focus areas, together with eco-efficiency and ride comfort. Our new products – heavily invested in to create a KONE ‘look & feel’, as well as to bring end-users to the core of the development – have won several awards, including those from Red Dot, Good Design and Fennia. Our new range of products has been slowly but strongly revitalising our identity.

The natural next step is to think of designing services. But how do we do that? Is it about improving our services or creating completely new ones? Actually, what does service design means for us? These are tricky questions, especially at the beginning when we were lacking the experience to answer them honestly and concretely. We still don’t have final answers yet, but the steps taken so far are not only solid but also inspiring. This article shares some of the top lessons learned during our journey.

Starting a movement

Theoretically, all companies want to shift towards user and customer-centricity. However, in reality, a move of this nature is challenging to say the least and it may not be suitable for everyone. Thus, the first step is to answer the question ‘why do this?’

Remember though that ‘why’ often includes a combination of factors, as it was in our case. On the one hand, we had strong internal drivers: a clear company strategy with customer-driven targets and a strong belief that we can just simply be better by creating solutions from a people-based standpoint (needs, wants, motivations) rather than from technology (machines, features). In other words, first define value for our customers and users and then develop the solutions. On the other hand, we had enough stories directly from the customers themselves that were so strong that they moved people internally towards a change.

Before any effort to change, make sure you know why you are changing. If you are not able to answer this, then simply don’t bother. This is because we are not talking about service design as an isolated activity: one would do it more justice by describing it as a snowball. When one starts from value for the customer or from the user, there is a substantial chance that it may lead towards a change in the company’s DNA: changes in organisation, capabilities, products and processes. This shift not only requires large investments, but also brings about pains that are difficult to forecast.

For that reason, service design can be a quite radical approach. It needs courage, and this courage must come from leadership roles outside of the design organisation. We – as designers – are quite convinced of our approach and quite confident that it is the only way to truly develop solutions with the customer and user interests at the core. But when one is trying to build a competence that is cross-disciplinary in nature, one must step outside of one’s comfort zone. In our case, the breakthrough came when we got allies from the business and technology areas of KONE: those outstanding individuals who had the vision, the confidence and the credibility to actually change things. The TED talk by Derek Sives, ‘How to start a movement’, spoke loudly to us. We experienced something similar: design may have been the starting point, but the movement only started when the promoters from other functions acted upon it.

Thinking big, taking small steps

One of the best pieces of advice I have heard in the cor porate world was ‘don’t try to eat the elephant in one bite’. Starting from a small pilot can do wonders because, with a minor investment, you can create evidence of how service design can change the way of doing and can ultimately bring better results. You can also have a better understanding of the changes that it will ultimately require or cause. You move the conversation from theory to concrete solutions, benefits and implications: these are much easier to explain, grasp and understand. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that one needs to be modest in ambition. Quite the opposite. Plan the full path towards a grand objective (one that some may even consider unachievable), and think of this as the first step.

A pilot allowed us to be more convincing about the benefits of our approach, paving the way for the approval of the first large service design project. This was our biggest milestone, as it made concrete a promise. Alongside this assurance, one must decide the approach to follow, not only for the project itself but also for the future of the competence. Decisions made here affect the long-term plan, so one does best by thinking already several steps ahead.

One of the central questions at that point was whether to build service design as an in-house competence or with external consultants. From my perspective, a combination of both is the most secure path. Firstly, we needed to work inwards to be able to provide the most fundamental requirement for service design: cross functionality. The nature of services is much more liquid than that of products, because we talk about processes, capabilities and flows. Expertise, know-how and commitment from different functions within the company are a must. This obviously cannot be bought in from the outside, so one of the biggest efforts faced during implementation is having the in-house muscle to involve the right people at the right moment. And to get them committed.

In addition, we need to break the boundaries with the outside world. Collaborating with service design consultants is something that makes complete sense because they will bring insight from the real world, as too often in corporations we tend to focus inwards or on our closest competitors. Consultants bring not only methods and tools, but have a healthy distance from corporate culture, which can help open up and accelerate the development. They are able to ask the right questions to determine the level of readiness to start a service design project or competence, and they are able to facilitate the engagement process. But external consultants cannot themselves drive a deep change in an organisation: there must be an in-house force driving the transformation to make it profound and sustainable. In other words, the driver must be internal, while it is wise to have an external co-pilot.

For that purpose, negotiation is tremendously necessary, though it is underrated in design thinking and processes. Our focus as designers has been very centred in the tools and methods to discover, make sense of findings and to propose solutions for customers and users. Still, we ought not forget that, in every single step of the way, our ideas need to be sold, to be defended and to be pushed. At the same time, we need to integrate our stakeholders’ and collaborators’ needs into the equation: create win-win situations.

The following diagram visualises the steps we have taken with some of the tools and methods we have used. Negotiation is what allows us to jump from one level to the next.

Being inclusive and evolving

A great advantage that we have is that the nature of service design is engaging, colourful and attractive. Our discipline is highly visible compared with other, more traditional approaches, because it includes things such as participatory workshops, post-its covering the walls, and paper prototypes. And we need to be inclusive. How are people going to understand what we are talking about other than by us showing it? It is an abstract discipline and, at the same time, it is one with great stories to tell. We use stories, and stories trigger emotions, and emotions are easier to understand and to remember.

And, as we take into consideration the voice and stories of customers and users, we benefit from taking the same approach with our peers. A colleague from the business told me once, after a rather intense session: “Listen to what [our decision-makers] have to say. They are seeing what will happen 20 steps ahead.” And she was totally right. One of our strongest skills as designers is the ability to imagine the best possible future. But in the quest towards delivering it, we may oversee the real concerns or challenges that building that future may represent. Business leaders are foreseeing that future from the perspective of investment, change management and profitability. Technology sees it from the angle of how to enable it. Human resources think of building the capabilities. All of them think of how to bring the desired future to be a reality, which often is more complex than we designers may think.

Paying very close attention to these angles and incorporating them in the design process are fundamental elements for success. What may appear to be forces working against us can easily become ammunition we can use. For instance, we can turn concerns into concrete features and even measures to evaluate our solutions. Indicators are not only necessary to assess the success level, but are, in addition, the foundation for further development. If the indicators allow us to evaluate results, they also enable the building of a competence that is more and more what the corporation needs.

While products are definite when drawings are finalised and production starts, services are always evolving and growing. Think of designing services as designing paths or roadmaps: they are both structured and flexible at once, and it gives one the confidence that if something simply doesn’t work, it can be changed. A ‘fail fast’ approach is one of the most important enablers for development. One must remember that when you are building something that does not yet exist, there is a chance it won’t work or it won’t bring value to the customer or user. The key is to avoid being frozen by that fear, and rather to be reassured by the fact that if you fail fast, you will be able to learn and move ahead. This is innovation in practice.

Would service design make sense for my organisation?

Every organisation is different and, thus, requires a different approach. If you are thinking of building an in- house service design competence at your company I would recommend taking a snapshot of your organisation to deter mine three fundamental insights:

1. Firstly, understand the level of readiness to implement a design approach. There is no doubt in my mind that service design brings great benefits, whether you are large or small, local or global, newborn or mature. But you need to understand where you are in order to plan accordingly. External experts can support you in this effort as they have experience and a healthy distance.

2. Secondly, assess the engagement of top management. The implications of the approach can be so significant that it is wise to have the decision-makers on board as early as possible. Probably this won’t be a given situation, but the result of a close and growing collaboration. Therefore, plan who should be involved and what is the best way to engage them.

3. Thirdly, evaluate where is the best location of service design as a competence. The nature of the discipline is cross-disciplinary, so traditional settings such as R&D or IT departments may not be the most suitable. Make sure you create a platform without silos where the key stakeholders and actors can move freely across functions.

As I look back over the last two years, I cannot help but feel very proud of the achievements and extremely confident of the benefits. I can now answer the starting question: ‘so what did you say service design is?’ Service design is an incredibly powerful approach for engaging people both internally and externally and for turning customer and user insights into service solutions. Thus, service design is a catalyst for change: created with people, for people. My last words are to encourage you to try it for yourself: don’t take my word for it, but experience it.

Photo: KONE service design team

Can you spot where the service design team is? Evidence of our work is visible even from the outside. In part we are ‘ruining’ the architect’s vision of the building, in part inspiring others and quite often piquing people’s curiosity.

D.A. Paula Bello was the first service design manager at KONE Corporation, with the responsibility for building the internal competence and team, as well as for establishing external networks. She is currently a consultant on design strategy for KONE and others and an entrepreneur in the fields of hospitality, real estate and digital services.