Design Thinking focuses on people’s actual needs rather than trying to persuade them to buy into what businesses are selling. It revolves around field research followed by freewheeling idea generation that often leads to unexpected results.

EYE-D was approached by the New Business Development Manager of Alliance Unichem the Netherlands to be part in the new strategy development for Alliance Unichem. Alliance Unichem is a pharmacy distributor with a pharmacy chain (De Kring, the Netherlands) and drugstore chain (Boots, UK). In the comming years faces many changes in their business so in this project we reshaped the suply chain around the end-user. We did this by extensive observation, talks with several internal and external stakeholders and end-user interviews.

The analysis resulted in a new strategy we shaped by using the characters John and Rebecca, a young retired couple. We shaped the suply chain around John & Rebecca but start by shaking up the management by a fictive news article to present a possible deal between Hollands biggest insurance company and Alliance Unichem’s biggest competitor OPG (through Mediveen, its pharmacy chain).

Now John & Rebecca became a metaphor for a change within Alliance Unichem, this complete vision on strategy still is far away but has been translated into small innovation projects.