The past four months Koos has spent > 1000 hours developing the KIST, the ‘Koos Innovatie Strategie Traject’.  It’s an intensive crash course,  which provides our clients with a structured approach to innovation and branding. Paul van Deelen, our graduating student from Delft University of Techology, has helped us to develop, test and refine the KIST, which is now ready to revolutionise the world of innovation and branding!

Why did we develop the KIST?
Innovation and branding have not always the priority within businesses they need. Running the daily business sucks up a lot of available resources and although everyone recognises the importance of both, most don’t act accordingly, which results in innovation being more or less a shot in the dark. At Koos we help companies to increase their innovation power, but the projects we run are sometimes very extensive and therefore expensive. Erik Roscam Abbing from Zilver, noted this problem as well, and together with the guys over there, we have been working on a shorter standardised version. This short track yields almost the same results, but has a more friendly price tag. That’s why the KIST contains no research and is purely based on knowledge that’s already available in the company. We make explicit, what’s implicitly already there, turn it around, structure it and hand it back to the company in easy to use posters, models and tools.

4 logic steps

1. Who are we?
We start to find out what makes our clients business really unique. What are their strengths? Why do they do the things they do? How do they make a difference? What value do they add to their customer’s life?

2. Who are our customers?
From knowledge that’s already available, we construct customer segments, based on motivations, context and needs. These segments are then brought to life with personas in a joint effort by Koos and the client. 

3. Identifying opportunity domains
In this phase we go and find out where the strengths of our client matches the needs of his customer. The place where this happens is what we call an opportunity domain. It’s a promising area where our client should innovate.

4. Exploring and refining promising opportunities
All opportunity domains are prioritised in a roadmap and we take the first opportunity domain, which we start to work out, using customer journey maps. A very effective tool to come up with ideas for improvements.

Advantages
The KIST provides:

• Direction and inspiration for future innovation efforts
• A holistic approach to develop products, services and communication
• A consistent brand experience delivered through all touchpoints
• Tools and processes for our clients to increase their own innovation power
• Cohesion and consistency in teams, based on a shared vision

Deliverables
Tangible, usable and easy to understand outcomes are key in the KIST. They make sure the results come to life within the organisation. Whenever a client starts a KIST with Koos, he knows what he’s gonna get upfront: brand values, a brand model, personas, an innovation roadmap, customer journey maps and concrete concepts. There’s even a menu with add-ons!

In short:
The KIST will revolutionise the way businesses innovate. It will help businesses to use design methods, meet customer needs, leverage internal strengths and build consistent brand experiences in their quest for growth.

For more information about the KIST: contact Koos at 020-753 0154.