Home > News

Brand Center Partners with Product Design Firm To Create New MBA Class  

January 20, 2009  

Innovation has become the most important basis of competitive advantage in today's economy. The stronger the innovation competency a company has, the stronger its overall competitiveness and prosperity.

The Center for Brand and Product Management (CBPM) at the Wisconsin School of Business this spring is redesigning how brand managers are taught to think about innovation with a new course, Design Thinking for Business. CBPM will partner with Design Concepts Inc., a Madison-based innovation and product-development firm, to create and instruct the new MBA course, which infuses traditional analytical business practicality with the creative problem solving, visionary thinking and empathy of design profession.

"Today's most successful companies understand consumers at a profound level and mobilize around that insight to create better solutions to increasingly difficult problems," says Thomas O'Guinn, professor of marketing and executive director of CBPM at the Wisconsin School of Business. "Design Thinking for Business is a truly groundbreaking and systematic approach to teaching MBA students how to innovate meaningfully for an ever-changing society. We are excited to be at the vanguard of this movement in graduate business education."

"The class will be extremely hands on and interactive," explains Stefanie Norvaisas, director of research and strategy at Design Concepts. "Students will experience the innovation development process by means of example. They'll learn that it's not just about good ideas; it's about pressing the boundaries of innovation and then bringing it back to implementation. True innovation is only a success if it benefits the end users and the company equally." 

Design Thinking for Business will focus on identifying and solving real problems. The course will be team-taught and integrate disciplines of research, anthropology, psychology, environmental technology and product design to create meaningful products and services that provide value to consumers and improve companies' bottom line.

To gain real-world experience, the class will collaborate and partner with one chosen organization in the social or environmental sector in need of innovation help. This year's partner organization is the University of Wisconsin Credit Union.

To learn more about Design Thinking for Business, watch video.
(opens in a new window)

About Design Concepts:  Founded in 1970, Design Concepts, Inc. is a product development firm providing service and product expertise spanning strategy, research, conceptualization, design, engineering and prototyping. 

About the Center for Brand and Product Management: Founded in 2002, the Center for Brand and Product Management is the nation’s first university-based center focused exclusively on training MBAs in brand and product management. The Center was established by Scott Cook – co-founder of Intuit, Inc., the maker of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax – and his wife Signe Ostby, former vice president of marketing for Software Publishing Corporation. It is supported by some of the finest product management companies in the world, who take a hands-on interest in the students through the Center’s Advisory Board.