Have you ever wondered why good ideas fail? Often times a seemingly great idea can't get off the ground. But why?
While there are many reasons why ideas fail, few are as damning as the failure to understand value, or to put a finer point on it the value exchange between businesses and people. It is only natural for businesses to fall into a paradigm of thinking over time. Misguided assumptions and out of context insights compound to cause businesses to lose sight of the value to the humans in their business ecosystem. Companies like Xerox fail when they lose sight of where that human value resides, regardless of how innovative they had been technologically.
On the other hand, there are any number of human-centered companies sprouting up all over the globe. These companies may be experts at understanding human value, but often develop their own paradigm thinking caused by the predictably similar skillsets and mindsets that they hire. This type of business fails to understand business viability, and ultimately will produce many great ideas that wither on the vine because they simply do not profit their clients.
Introducing Shift, a pragmatic human-centered strategy and design firm based out of St. Louis, MO. Co-Founders, Keith Pelkey and Jake Truemper recognized the need for human-centered methods to be infused with business valuation and measurement in order to make great ideas go. Keith, a long-time management consultant with deep Six Sigma experience has been helping businesses craft strategies and find operational business solutions with business value in mind. Jake, a human-centered strategist with Design Thinking roots, has been doing much the same from the perspective of the customer experience. Together, with a diverse team that helps pull a number of relevant fields of knowledge, Shift serves businesses in four key areas:
1.) Human-Centered Business Strategy
Businesses tend to think that they know what their problems are, but almost just as frequently, they tend to be wrong. The reason for this is that almost all of what they understand as problems, are really just symptoms. By finding and framing the root cause of a problem space, or identifying where ideal opportunities exist in relation to competition, Shift is able to help businesses drive towards the right objectives.
2.) Product & Service Design
Whether you are crafting a physical product or environment, a digital product, or a full service experience, Shift applies proven human-centered methods to drive momentum and assure positive business outcomes.
3.) Innovation Services
Innovation isn't easy, but Shift's set of innovation methods will help you find your way. We are experts in crafting a new business models, ideating on potential futures, and assigning value to your ideas.
4.) Training
No matter your strategy, you can't change organizations' behaviors without buy-in from your employees. When skill development is essential to build the internal capabilities of Human-Centered Design, we have tested training programs to transfer that knowledge to the workforce.
In short, Shift transforms businesses through human-centered innovation. Whether it be a company’s strategy, culture, or a product or service, we create experiences that are viable, feasible, and desirable to real people.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to Shift to schedule a conversation, we're always happy to chat.
