DESIGN THINKING

 

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MANAGING COMMUNICATION PROBLEM BETWEEN CHARIS UAS AND ITS CLIENT WITH THE DESIGN THINKING PROCESS

Charis UAS is the leading drone company in Rwanda, providing cutting-edge drone data collection and aerial photography services. It is the first-ever licensed drone company in Rwanda with leading services and manufacturing. They provide rapid and high-quality aerial imagery to support intelligent decision making that can solve some of Africa’s biggest challenges. Through advanced analytics at Charis UAS, governments, and private sector clients can make informed decisions that improve crop production, advance energy programs, protect local environments, and even save lives. (Charisuas.com, 2020)

The services mentioned above are very crucial to the African communities, but there is a problem of communication between Charis UAS and its clients. This company has been operating since 2014, and they have been using different ways of marketing, the awareness in people is still very low. Many people hear about it and think that it is only meant for only government activities, so they don’t understand how drone services can ease their daily activities. This is hindering the rate of technology development in Rwanda as well as the bouncing of sales at Charis UAS. As such, there is a need for Charis UAS to raise awareness of their services in Rwanda, so that people can start using them.

A Presentation of Prototype

Charis UAS will hire 40 sales agents who will be in charge of identifying new clients and create a link between them and the company. These sales agents will be provided with the allowances for communications and transport so that they can be able to reach different people. Their income will be based on the commissions after closing deals with clients. These sales agents will be in charge of contacting people who can become clients, ask for appointments to meet them, and work with the Charis UAS management to close the deals. This will be good because clients will be personally approached and get all the important information regarding drone services. 

Overview of the Design Thinking Process in Solving the Communication Problem at Charis UAS

Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. As such, the design thinking process helps problem solves to come up with long-term solutions to the existing problems in the community.

Charis UAS is the leading drone company in Rwanda, providing cutting-edge drone data collection and aerial photography services. It is the first-ever licensed drone company in Rwanda with leading services and manufacturing. They provide rapid and high-quality aerial imagery to support intelligent decision making that can solve some of Africa’s biggest challenges. Through advanced analytics at Charis UAS, governments and private sector clients can make informed decisions that improve crop production, advance energy programs, protect local environments, and even save lives.

 

                                           (Charisuas.com, 2020)

The services mentioned above are very crucial to the African communities, but there is a problem of communication between Charis UAS and its clients. This company has been operating since 2014, and they have been using different ways of marketing, awareness in people is still very low. Many people hear about it and think that it is only meant for only government activities, so they don’t understand how drone services can ease their daily activities. This is hindering the rate of technology development in Rwanda as well as the bouncing of sales at Charis UAS. As such, there is a need for Charis UAS to raise awareness of their services in Rwanda, so that people can start using them.

The design thinker was able to develop a point of view (POV) after emphasizing with end-users through different methods such as observation, interviews, and surveying.

                                  Sales and Marketing Manager at Charis UAS

In phase 2 of design thinking called define, the designer analyzed the feedback from the first phase and came up with a POV that says, “Charis UAS needs to put much effort into raising their awareness in people to start working with them, improve the leverage of technology in different activities as well as expanding the reach of Charis UAS services.”

In phase 3 of the design thinking called Ideate, the designer based on the point of view and came with three possible solutions to address the issue. Those solutions were; hire a social media manager who will be communicating with clients on social media platforms and create content and posts for Charis UAS, work with the government and prepare workshops that aim to teach people about drones and how they can help them in their everyday activities, or hire 20 sales agents who will be in charge of identifying new clients and create a link between them and the company.

After the analysis that the design thinker made, he decided to opt for the third solution which is hiring 20 sales agents who will be in charge of identifying new clients and create a link between them and the company. These sales agents will be provided with the allowances for communications and transport so that they can be able to reach different people. Their income will be based on the commissions after closing deals with clients. These sales agents will be in charge of contacting people who can become clients, ask for appointments to meet them, and work with the Charis UAS management to close the deals. This will be good because clients will be personally approached and get all the important information regarding drone services. 

 

In the fourth phase of the design thinking process called a prototype, he created a prototype of how the solution will look like.

 

After prototyping, he moved to the fifth phase of design thinking known as testing. In this phase, he took the above prototype to the end-users to hear their thoughts and feedback.

                                        Explaining the prototype to the end-users

After presenting the prototype to the end-users, the following is the feedback he got.

Glows	Grows
·         It clearly shows the nature of the solution ·         It is easy to understand ·         It shows how service consumers will easily get connected with Charis UAS through the sales agents.	It only shows the flow of information from Charis UAS but not from the service consumers.           The sales agents are not enough to reach all service consumers. So, the suggestion is to increase the team to at least 40 people.

 

Considering all pieces of the feedback above, the following is the second prototype for the solution that he finally created.  

                                  A final refined version of the prototype

 

 

 

 

 

References

Charisuas.com. (2020, November 6). DELIVERING DRONE BASED SOLUTIONS TO AFRICA AND BEYOND. Charis UAS. https://charisuas.com/