In our previous blog we showed you how to use the Cover Story Canvas. We showed you four ways of how Tesla or Elon Musk could have designed their vision for the future. In this blog we show you how you can use to understand the context of the auto industry and mobility. The Context Canvas® is the framework we use to help you understand the context. Use this template to map out the trends with your team, and share different perspectives. The Context Canvas® was created by David Sibbet, of the Grove International.
When most teams begin to unpack the context of their product or organization, they take a short-sighted point of view that is rooted in the here and now. The Context Canvas® is meant to help you and your team expand your thinking beyond the boundaries of your product and organization, to have a deeper conversation about what’s going on in the world and what’s changing that will affect your business in the future.
So, imagine you are dealing with mobility and the car industry at the moment whether you are an entrepreneur or working in a corporate company. What are the demographic and technology trends, rules and regulations and the customer needs? What are the trends in the economy that will impact your business, who are your biggest competitors and what are the uncertainties?
Below you can find three ways to look into the industry; specific for tesla, cars and mobility.
1. TESLA
In this example you see what is happening outside of Tesla. Imagine you are part of the team of Tesla and would like to understand your context. A demographic trend is that electric driving becomes more popular, but on the other hand we see a decrease of car ownerships. Tesla’s competitors are car companies who also brought electric cars on the market, but public transport and car sharing is also competition for Tesla. The technology trends and the customer needs have a lot of influence on the future of Tesla.
2. Car industry
So what does the car industry as a whole look like? In the car industry context map, you can see what is happening around the car production and the technology of cars. Within five to ten years, do we still drive our own cars? And what are the customer needs? And do we still need cars to get from A to B, if we also can use electric bikes, public transport or if we can work from home? Here you will see that regulation is driving where the car industry is going. Uncertainties around legislation, fossil fuels.
3. mobility
In this third example, we are looking to a broader industry “Mobility” that can have an impact on the car industry and eventually on Tesla. For example, nowadays we can work from home because of a digital world, which can have an impact on the use of cars. Secondly, we live in a 24 hour society, which means we want fast delivery, a better experience and a perfect service. Drones might deliver our packages faster and more efficient, which can have an impact on the car industry.
SO WHAT?
The context map is a very easy tool to understand the context of a market. You can work on this with your team and in an hour you have a great overview and great discussions. We recommend to use different lenses when you look into context: e.g. the direct context of your company (like Tesla), an industry overview (like car industry) and to a broader extent like Mobility. You can zoom in and out and when you do this more often, you will see more. Eventually these insights help you understand the trend waves you can ride on and spot new opportunities.If you want to try this with your team, have a look at the step by step guide.
DISCLAIMER
We designed these examples to give you inights in usage of the context canvases with different scope. The context canvas is not complete.
experience it live!
Do you want to learn more about how to understand the context? And do you want to learn more about the tools, cases and mindset behind Design a Better Business? Join our two-day workshop, hosted by the authors and designers of the bestseller! We’ll do a deep dive and help participants become designers. Join our experience this October in Amsterdam or in New York. Are you one of the lucky participants?