Quicksand

Are we on the same page about innovation?

Envisioning a New Consumer Bank Experience for IDFC Bank

The new set of licenses issued by the central bank in India aim to bring greater customer centricity within the financial services sector. Setting up a new bank today, affords an opportunity to reimagine customer experience using technology and to rethink products and services for a generation of digital natives-areas that the incumbent players are illequipped to address.

How do we re-design the consumer banking experience to shape expectations in an emerging India?

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New Beverage Category for a Global Major

India’s annual per capita consumption of sparkling beverages is about 3 Litres compared to similar markets like Mexico where it is close to 180 Litres. The rural and semi-urban markets are still largely untapped and penetration in urban markets has plateaued. There is, however, a vibrant ethnic beverage landscape that offers inspiration and opportunity to discover new consumer segments and develop products that are locally relevant.

How can we design a new sparkling beverage proposition for the Indian market inspired by ethnic flavors?

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Embedded Technology for Health & Well Being for Samsung Electronics

Health and wellness is a growing concern for people across the globe. Lifestyles are changing rapidly, and age old practices are being disrupted. The ubiquity of consumer electronics in people's lives and the mega-trend around Internet of Things has created opportunities around how consumer technology could provide users more control and ability to monitor their well being.

How can we integrate consumer electronics technology in people’s lives for them to be able to better manage their health concerns?

Disruptive Innovation in Home Care for the BoP for Unilever

The base of the pyramid constitutes a $15 Trillion economy represented by 4.5 billion people globally. Unilever’s mission is to double its turnover by 2020 driven largely by growth in these new segments. Using it’s home care portfolio as a starting point, it became evident that the current product mix and business model fails to address the unique needs of low income households in Nigeria, India, Indonesia and China.

How does one create market propositions that are valuable (for consumers) and viable at the Bottom Of the Pyramid?

Transforming Financial Impact of Subsidy Transfers for CGAP, World Bank

Government to People (G2P) payments in India amount to USD 100 billion annually. A massive public program is underway to provide every individual a unique digital identity. Linking this to a bank account will allow government benefits to be transferred directly to beneficiaries.

While the new system is designed for improved efficiency, has the end user benefited at the last mile?

Quicksand is a design strategy & innovation consultancy headquartered in India.

We work across a diverse range of contexts in emerging markets.

Our experience across sectors

We work with global corporations to envisage new business opportunities.

We work with international development partners to drive social impact through innovation.

We explore and incubate open networks for creativity and collaboration.

What are some inherent challenges around innovation?

What does innovation entail

Understanding Users

Imagining Solutions

Realising Market-Fit Solutions

Integrating Innovation in Strategy & Practice

What does innovation entail

Understanding users - Understanding the needs of typical users is critical for any solution to be relevant. However, including the needs of users who are outliers or atypical, creates potential for disruptive innovations.

Imagining solutions - Solutions need to address challenges, but also account for shifting realities. Innovation needs to take a holistic view of technology, consumer trends, behaviours and cultures to imagine solutions for today and for tomorrow.

Realising market-fit solutions - Offering a viable and sustainable offering requires finding a balance between user desirability, technical viability and financial feasibility.

Integrating innovation in strategy & practice - Making innovation a core differentiator requires an integration of it’s methods and practices into all aspects of the organisation. Consistency matters more than a one-off effort.

Strategy & innovation anchored in the principles and process of design is a powerful way to transform insights into high impact outcomes.

Strategy and innovation anchored in design

Design is immersive - it helps frame entire ecosystems as it does not place a product or service, its use, the users, and the context of use in silos. In our experience, high impact solutions lie at the intersection of different contexts - individual, culture, commerce and technology.
 Design is actionable - within design, there is a focus on synthesis of observations, rather than on only analysis of information - what this means is that the focus is on framing themes, storytelling and creating prototypes that are actionable. 
 Design is iterative - it lives and evolves on a day to day basis. The actionable R&D process starts with the first moment of inquiry in design research.

Human centered design is a robust framework that cycles flexibly between insight generation, framing, prototyping, and testing

Process of Human Centered Design

empathize

define

ideate

prototype

validate

Process of Human Centered Design

empathise - immersing in the everyday experiences of one’s users with an aim to understand their behaviour and aspirations define - framing potential opportunities by aligning user insights with trends, capabilities and competition ideate - exploring solutions by creating platforms for collaboration and ideation prototype - making ideas real and testing their viability through quick and low resolution prototyping validate - keeping the design process close to users by channeling feedback on prototypes and iterating accordingly

Process of Human Centered Design

When applied to innovation mandates within complex contexts, human centered design must also be understood as a set of principles rooted in:

a Practice that depends on user as its source of inspiration and guidance. a Team that shares values of curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. a Process that embodies values of learning, iterating and adapting.

Quicksand’s articulation of the human centered design process is summarized through three simple tenets Meeting People Telling Stories Crafting Experiences

Meeting People

Meeting People

Framing an opportunity through the lens of peoples’ needs or desires is our entry-point in the innovation journey.

Telling Stories

Telling Stories

Stories have the power to bring together teams and provide a rich, fertile ground for insights, ideas and inspiration.

Crafting Experiences

Crafting Experiences

MATRIX FLOW

INITIATION INTO COUNSELLING

>

ALUMNI SHARING

>

ALUMNI MENTORING >

ONLINE MENTORING

Raghu re built based on criteria that are thought through and facilitated by the teachers.

These groups w

Raghu re built based on criteria that are thought through and facilitated by the teachers.

These groups w

Class Blog re built based on criteria that are thought through and facilitated by the teachers.

These groups w

mentoring

Initiation into counselling sessions Students know that they have an unbiased and supportive resource to enable them overcome personal hurdles and inhibitions and to discuss aspirations and plans. This also gradually enables them to build career plans and growth paths for themselves.

The counsellor also acts as an initial mentor and continues to be so, but less intensively, once the alumni mentoring starts.

Alumni experience sharingphysical/virtual

Alumni mentoring

Mentoring - online forums

Alumni who have gone through the same course could be brought in to share their experiences. This gives students realistic role models that they can relate to and help them envision their own future.

Alumni could mentor groups of students. This could be through physical and online modes. It creates a sense of connect and provides a support structure.

Ongoing Alumni interactions on a one to one basis through online platforms alongside with the counsellor supporting the student .

Sharing could be enabled through group lunches, online forums, and field visits.

The institute could encourage this by giving appreciation certificates, refresher courses to the alumni

A well designed product or a service is a standout experience first that depends on craftsmanship and a systems perspective that takes into account all possible touch points with the user.

Delivering impact through design led strategy and innovation

Envisioning a New Consumer Bank Experience for IDFC Bank

“We mandated Quicksand to obtain deep insights into customers pain points with consumer banking using their human centric design approach to research. Through the research they developed a number of customer solutions for integrating banking into everyday customer life events. They also identified a number of design principles that form the basis of our processes to ensure a higher level of customer experience. The consumer lens provided through their work has become the central facet for developing the IDFC Consumer Bank.�

Naval Bir Kumar CEO, Consumer Banking Services, IDFC Bank /38

Disruptive Innovation in Home Care for the BoP for Unilever

“Unilever Household Care’s dedicated workstream for the BoP could develop its own unique perspective on innovations primarily because of the passion with which Quicksand pursues human-centred design. Their knowledge on how to shape innovation design from observation of people, objects and their interrelated behavior makes them quite inseparable to us as we foray into the exciting business of market development.”

Arindam Som Global Brand Director, Innovations for BoP

Transforming Financial Impact of Subsidy Transfers for CGAP, World Bank

“Quicksand provides a vibrant team of lateral thinkers that are able to apply ethnographic and qualitative research skills to a range of policy questions. They also work well within mixed methods teams, supporting quantitative surveys with deep dives into communities and working on solutions in a collaborative manner. Definitely amongst the top human centered design firms working in India today.�

Shweta Banerjee Program Officer, World Bank

We are set up as

a Consulting Practice working with a diverse set of clients on strategy and innovation. a Lab, incubating and supporting various independent projects such as B.L.O.T, Blindboys, Off Grid, Kites and GamesLab. founders of UnBox Cultural Futures Society, our attempt to build momentum around inter-disciplinary collaboration. a member of REACH, a global consortium of design research and strategy firms.

Our consulting work spans a variety of sectors

Consumer Technologies Google, Facebook , Nokia, Samsung Consumer Goods Unilever, Coca-Cola Cultural Industry British Council, Dutch DFA, Goethe Institut Education & Livelihoods Cisco, International Youth Foundation, One World South Asia Financial Services IDFC, GIZ, The World Bank Humanitarian International Rescue Committee Water & Sanitation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Our incubated projects explore emerging facets of art, design and technology

Clockwise from L: Antariksha Sanchar, a point and click video game inspired by the life of famous Indian mathematician Ramanujam; Blow-up, impromptu street exhibitions organised by community members of blindboys.org; Audio-visual performances by Blot; Off Grid, a mobile first social network

UnBox is our ecosystem for innovation manifesting as festivals, fellowships and events since 2011

UnBox Festival 2011, Delhi

We are a part of Reach, a global network of design research and strategy firms spread across Europe, Latin America and Asia

www.quicksand.co.in hello@quicksand.co.in @helloQS linkedin.com/company/quicksand-design-studio