The colourful post-it notes on the walls of the training workshops reflect the illuminating spirit of Design Thinking: They succinctly capture the pain points of users, and set the scene for participants to brainstorm ideas and find innovative solutions to everyday problems.

CLP has provided Design Thinking training sessions to nearly 4,000 Hong Kong employees over the past two years. The company has also designed a badging system for employees to work their way up a graded pathway from ‘apprentice’ to ‘practitioner’ to ‘assistant coach’ to ‘coach’ to ‘fellow’.

Claire He is one of 11 coaches who now helps promote the adoption of Design Thinking across the company. “It is a valuable experience to hold workshops and pass on our knowledge to colleagues, while at the same time learning from each other to enhance our work and business performance,” she says.

As the saying goes, “Knowledge is a treasure but practice is the key to it.” That practical approach to the interpretation of Design Thinking has yielded a succession of impressive outcomes since its 2019 launch.

Sixty Design Thinking projects have been implemented at CLP to date, ranging from digitalisation and customer experience enhancements to safety and productivity improvements. Some are producing substantial results such as increased revenue, cost savings, lowered risk, improved brand image, and greater customer and employee satisfaction.

Weathering storms

Design Thinking practitioner Benson Yu and his colleagues in the Power Systems Business Group applied Design Thinking to create a novel solution that improves internal communications and customer service in typhoon seasons. 

“Adverse weather conditions such as typhoons can cause power supply issues, and when hundreds of calls come in, it puts great pressure on different departments,” Yu says.

In face of increasing business challenges, Design Thinking as a strategy helps a company and its employees embrace a human-centred mindset to address pain points and improve work processes. 

Following the encouraging response from employees and successful cases of Design Thinking in action, CLP is committed to continue to deploy it to uplift its service innovation and operational excellence, and create customer-centric solutions that make life smarter, safer, and more convenient.