An Analysis of Service Design Thinking at Microsoft Corporation

This essay examines the application of service design thinking within Microsoft Corporation. It begins with an introduction to Microsoft and its significance in the technology sector, highlighting the company's global reach and the importance of aligning its services with stakeholder needs. The essay then delves into the concept of service design thinking, explaining how it can be used to enhance existing services or create new ones, emphasizing its role in making Microsoft products user-friendly. The discussion covers the three main ways Microsoft can employ service design thinking to foster innovation, including empathy, prototyping, and design implementation, detailing the five cycles of the design process: understanding, envisioning, specifying, implementing, and maintaining. The essay further identifies potential challenges Microsoft can address through service design thinking, such as keeping up with market demands and technological advancements, and harmonizing the needs of all stakeholders. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of fully integrating service design thinking into Microsoft's operations to maximize its benefits.

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2Introduction
Microsoft is a technology-based organization that is focused on developing and
implementing the software that is used in computers and the wide world web. The
organization was founded by Bill Gates in 1975.(Anderson et al,2005 p 193)
Microsoft products are used by both domestic and commercial consumers making it a
suitable company to study business approach models. Services offered by Microsoft
play a significant role in the effectiveness of operations in organizations. They
enhance popularity, communication, productivity, and simplicity. Being a globally
recognized company, Microsoft has a big responsibility to ensure that the services
they provide are in line with the needs of all stakeholders. It is essential that the
corporation adopts a strategy to ensure that they are continually offering services that
are of high quality. Service design thinking is one of the models of operations that
Microsoft can adopt. This essay seeks to broadly discuss this model about its
adaptability and benefit to the Microsoft Corporation.
Potential Use Of Service Design Thinking In Microsoft Corporation
Service design thinking entails taking a service and molding it to suit the needs of a
specific customer. It can also be used to add value to an already existing facility or to
generate a new service from scratch.
In the initial years of Microsoft, their products were quite cumbersome to use, and
customers used to have a tough time understanding the concepts around those
products. Microsoft to improve their service delivery have employed service design
thinking model making them user-friendly. They have released improved versions of
their software over the years which have become simpler for all levels of consumers.
Being one of the most dominant companies in the world, Microsoft has a huge task to
ensure that their services are both secure and user-friendly. This need has prompted
the company to employ a service design thinking strategy in its operations. There
three main ways that the organization can adopt the service design thinking model to
promote innovation.
One of these ways is trying to get empathy within the business operations strategy.
This refers to understanding the customer’s needs and also those of the workers in the
company. Once this is achieved, the company can come up with a solution that is

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3favorable to all stakeholders. Once this is accomplished, the company has a higher
chance at maximum profitability and top notch performance.
Another way is ensuring prototyping to assist all stakeholders to imagine the solution
and explore and test it to ensure that it solves the problems.
The third way is embracing the role that design plays inside the organization.
Microsoft has deployed a team to activate a design process which includes five cycles
namely; understanding, envision, specify, implement and then maintain the
design(Johansson et al, 2013 pg. 121).
Understanding entails gathering information about the needs of the user and
comprehending them.
During the envisioning phase the team analyses the data collected from the understand
phase and try to come up with solutions for the highlighted problems. This is usually
an in-depth process of trying to comprehend the issues highlighted.
At the specification stage, the team discusses and shares ideas then define a solution
and create a specified product. At this level, the problem has already been well
understood, and the answer that the team comes up with is one that they deem most
fit.
At the implementation stage, the product that has been specified is used to develop
prototypes and then testing is done before it is released to the market. Testing of a
product or service is critical. A global company such as Microsoft cannot release a
service without testing it first and ensuring that it is fit for the consumer.
At the final stage, the product goes through a continuous process of evaluation to
maintain its viability. Once a service has been released to the consumer, the company
still has to ensure that it remains relevant. If this is not done, the chances of the
services failing are very high, and this would be disastrous for the company.
Once a design goes through all these steps, it has been verified to be fit for use by the
consumers and is, therefore, a solution to a problem
.

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4Potential Challenges At Microsoft Corporation That Can Be Addressed Through
Service Design Thinking
The Microsoft corporation can employ service design thinking to deal with some of
the challenges they could face in operations and service delivery.
As a continually growing enterprise, the corporation often has to come up with new
services to keep up with market demand and also technological advancements.
Here the service design thinking can be employed to ensure that the new services
released are favorable to both the company, its employees and the users.
Sometimes, an existing service may be problematic to either the service provider or
him consumer and in some instances to both. Service design thinking comes in handy
in such situations to clearly define the problem and also analyze possible solutions.
This method is very useful in such cases because of its ability to carry out a detailed
problem-solving process.
This approach to problem-solving has been proven to be cost-saving other major
corporations such as Citrix. One of the primary goals of any business enterprise is to
maximize profits and minimize unnecessary expenditure. Microsoft can adopt this
model to avoid incurring unnecessary losses.
The service design thinking model of operations is very vital in harmonizing and
striking a balance among all the stakeholders of a corporation, especially one of vital
importance as Microsoft. For proper and efficient running of the business, each
stakeholder needs to feel appreciated, and their needs met. They all need to have their
needs and expectations met, and this is where the process of service design thinking
comes in handy. The results are usually a business running in perfect harmony.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the service design thinking strategy in Microsoft can be defined as a
value-adding model that helps in operations. It is therefore of paramount importance
that this model is maintained in Microsoft.
It is highly recommendable that service design thinking strategy is employed fully in
Microsoft operations rather than be used for specific projects only. This will enable
the corporation at large to reap maximum benefits from the model.

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5References
Anderson, D.J., 2005, July. Stretching agile to fit CMMI level 3-the story of creating MSF for
CMMI/spl reg/process improvement at Microsoft corporation. In Agile Development Conference
(ADC'05) (pp. 193-201).
Johansson‐Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J. and Çetinkaya, M., 2013. Design thinking: past, present
and possible futures. Creativity and innovation management, 22(2), pp.121-146.Stickdorn, M.,
Schneider, J., Andrews, K. and Lawrence, A., 2011. This is service design thinking: Basics, tools,
cases (Vol. 1). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
.