Hochschule Karlsruhe and BASF collaboratively “design think“ innovative business models at the SAP Apphaus

„Business model innovation“, „value proposition“, „out-of-the-box-thinking“: twenty Master students of Hochschule Karlsruhe and a team from BASF SE had to deal with a certain amount of Anglicisms, which subtly brought an American atmosphere at May 22^nd 2015. The workshop headed “Business Model Generation” took place at the SAP Apphaus in Heidelberg and was part of the Master module “Design Thinking”, that the students are attending. Carsten Hahn, Professor for Entrepreneurship at Hochschule Karlsruhe and Director at Innovation Center Network (ICN) of SAP SE, introduced the event and presented the theme and scope of the workshop. Later on, Thomas Kiciak, product manager Styrodur at BASF SE, and the students delightedly exchanged views and narrowed the actual “problem space”. “I was impressed of the high level the students worked on and how they were committed.” said Thomas Kiciak later. The students worked on new business models with BASF experts, collaboratively as groups. Their work was driven by the three relevant business model dimensions “desirability”, “feasibility” and “viability”. Both students and BASF experts used design thinking techniques during the group work. Various and creative ideas resulted which were condensed within the solution space and developed further. Building paper tails one-handed or group brainstorming for offbeat business concepts for the “silly cow” kept the creativity level high. Which one(s) of the elaborated business models promises the greatest success and in what way they can and will be implemented, will be seen. The BASF team was in any case delighted with the results and the workshop. Carolin Romeser, Master student at Hochschule Karlsruhe, will “keep Styrodur, BASF and the Apphaus in good memory”.