Handout for Case SMU837

Set in 2019, this case illustrates a design thinking intervention programme carried out at the Elite's Smile Specialized Medical Complex in the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia. The programme was part of a doctorate research project undertaken at the Singapore Management University. The case introduces Elite's Smile, a private dental clinic that offers a comprehensive range of services including routine and complex treatments for adults and children. Despite being an established clinic with broad dental expertise and state-of-the-art equipment, Elite's Smile faces great challenges in view of growing competition from new entrants and increasing service expectation from customers. The case discussion encourages the participants to evaluate whether design thinking, a human-centred problem-solving approach, would work in a small-and-medium enterprise (SME) and non-US context. The handout describes the actual intervention programme conducted over six months at Elite's Smile. At the centre of intervention is a training workshop covering the five-phase design thinking process and supporting tools for each phase. Notable improvements were observed at post-intervention in terms of increasing customer satisfaction (as seen in the patient retention and recommendation), a more cooperative work culture, and most importantly, growing income for the clinic. The instructor could use the handout to stimulate further discussion on why design thinking has worked for Elite's Smile.

In early 2009, Shailesh Naik founded MatchMove, a Singapore-based online entertainment service provider. Naik and his business partner had identified a gap in the Asian online gaming market and their vision was to plug this gap with a company-specific platform that incorporated casual gaming, social networking and e-commerce capabilities. MatchMove signed up global technology giant Yahoo! as its first large client. The company also contracted with game developers to create its own store of quality games that it could offer to its clients. MatchMove's key value proposition was to act as a conduit between game companies with a high content and low web traffic profile, as well as companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft with a high traffic and limited content profile. It eventually visualised itself as a closed e-commerce system to accept payments for services on its clients' websites, as well as an open payments portal for all users for multiple merchants. By 2012, MatchMove had further ventured into 'gamification', a domain related to its core business. Fast-forwarding to January 2014, Naik sees an opportunity in the market to create the next technological disruption to e-commerce. His vision is that of an open network which taps into the current trend of catering to the 'unbanked' and 'un-carded'. Will this work? Can he do it alone, or should he look for a partner? How should MatchMove evolve its business model to seize this next big opportunity?