Back to Design-Led Strategy: Design thinking for business strategy and entrepreneurship
The University of Sydney

Design-Led Strategy: Design thinking for business strategy and entrepreneurship

This course is for entrepreneurial managers who are looking for tools and techniques to introduce exciting, innovative products or services to market quickly and informed by high-quality customer insights. It is applicable to a range of organizations from small-medium sized enterprises through to corporates, and across a range of industrial segments. The problem this course helps address is the constant pressure managers face to be innovative and introduce novel products and services for their customers. However, many creative ideas get ‘stuck’ in the boardroom or are subject to intra-organizational tensions or group think. This course provides methodologies to break through these challenges. We build on the widely known concept of design thinking but update it and apply it to advance business strategy and entrepreneurship. Over five weeks you will learn what ‘design strategy’ is, how it differs from traditional design thinking and business strategy, and how it can be used to improve existing products or services in your business, or introduce breakthrough ideas. We will also provide an exclusive, deep-dive into the practical application and impact of these strategies in one of Australia’s newest, most innovative financial institutions, UBank, and the global re-insurance giant, Swiss Re. Through conversations with their Senior Executive Leadership Teams, including UBank’s CEO, we will explore how they have embedded innovation through design thinking. By the end of this course, you will have a set of tools to inform product design and development for your own start-up, or to extend the product roadmap of an established organization.

Status: Product Design
Status: Design Thinking
IntermediateCourse20 hours

Featured reviews

SK

5.0Reviewed Dec 9, 2020

It's really an excellent course for UX professionals. It takes deep insight from the design thinking process to Design Strategy to Corporate Strategy. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

KK

5.0Reviewed Oct 25, 2022

T​he content and the way content has been delivered is great. B​usiness canvas- the templates, the thought provoking questions can be applicable to real life business challenges.

DF

5.0Reviewed Feb 13, 2025

This course in Design - Led Strategy is filled with insightful theory, back with examples of practical applicants which allows the participant to immerse themselves in the topic.

NL

5.0Reviewed Aug 17, 2020

This course is a very useful and excellent course I would say. Well comprehend and I love the part which brings in real life examples of how Swiss Re and Ubank used the design strategy.

AS

4.0Reviewed Jan 16, 2025

I found the content insightful, and the topics were explained clearly. However, I felt the course could have delved a bit deeper into each topic for a more comprehensive understanding.

RL

5.0Reviewed Sep 6, 2020

It's a very valuable and professional course. If you are starting your own business this course will help you to solve many doubts on the process of problem resolution and planning.

BB

5.0Reviewed Mar 4, 2019

I really enjoyed this course. It uses real cases to help you empathise with corporate internal issues which happens in any company. I definitely learned from it and recommend it.

DC

4.0Reviewed Feb 12, 2021

The course was succinct and provided useful case studies and tools to help implement a design thinking process. I would recommend it to other busy professionals who need a crash course on this topic.

SV

5.0Reviewed Jan 1, 2022

The course is lays a very strong foundation to the idea of Design-led strategy. All the key points are very well explained by the curators and it has been a good learning experience.

BH

5.0Reviewed May 9, 2020

This course is very advisable for university students, entrepreneurs or anyone who want to have a big picture for the application of design thinking in business innovation.

EW

4.0Reviewed Feb 23, 2021

The course is very useful and I've learned a lot. A suggestion is to add a few examples of completed artefacts, e.g. Business Model Canvas and explain the theory around the completed examples.

KM

4.0Reviewed Sep 2, 2021

W​ell articulated material and easy to digest byte sized elements. Covers well the topic of design thinking and how it blends with corporte and product strategy to result in design strategic thinking.

All reviews

Showing: 20 of 328

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2.0
Reviewed Jul 3, 2019
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1.0
Reviewed Oct 12, 2020
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