The role of design thinking in Big Data innovations

Digital technologies are disrupting the way companies manage business. In today’s society, where a plethora of different digital solutions are booming and the attention of both practitioners and scholars is growing, little is known about how to make the most of such technologies. Given the complexity of the phenomenon, this paper refers to a single digital technology, Big Data. It is commonly recognised that Big Data can represent a competitive advantage source for companies. However, there is still a lack of literature on how to exploit the opportunities provided by this technology, while the amount of data is so vast that their interpretation is complex. The focus on human centricity, iteration, and prototyping of Design Thinking brought the academic world towards the recognition that this approach could be valuable in steering and managing this technology. Thus, the paper investigates how Design Thinking can foster innovation based on Big Data technologies. It leverages three explicative case studies to shed light on a new set of hybrid practices. By comparing and contrasting cases, the four practices of (i) Cropping Big Data Landscapes, (ii) Reframing Big Data applications, (iii) Unveiling Big Data Opportunities, and (iv) Proving Big Data Releases are proposed. These hybrid sets of practices support both practitioners and academics in opening up the black box to interpret and value Big Data.