Creating Competitive Advantage from Services: A Design Thinking Case Study from the Commodities IndustryService design thinking can provide the tools to help companies design value propositions that meet customer needs and sustain competitive advantage.

OVERVIEW: In commodities markets, companies struggle to develop and communicate solutions for customer needs that provide competitive advantage. Service design thinking can provide the tools to help redesign value propositions to incorporate solutions that meet customer needs and sustain competitive advantage. However, in order to apply service design thinking effectively in organizational settings characterized by product thinking, some specific issues must be addressed. Based on a case study of a local gas supplier, redgas, we offer three key lessons from applying service design thinking to create new value propositions in the commodity industry: 1) see the bigger picture, 2) select suitable prototyping methods to support a collaborative ideation process, and 3) communicate narratives to and solicit feedback from customers.