David Lawrence talks about how design led Shimano, the maker of high performance bicycle components, into whole new product categories.

David Lawrence is Senior Manager, Bicycle Product Development and Marketing, Shimano America. Dave heads up the continual development and introduction of new Shimano products to the North American cycling market. For six months in 2003, he was embedded at innovation and design firm IDEO for an intensive research and design project which later became Shimano's Coasting. Coasting, which will debut this spring, will be the largest product and marketing launch in the company's history.

The IIT Institute of Design Strategy Conference is an international executive forum addressing how businesses can use design to explore emerging opportunities, solve complex problems, and achieve lasting strategic advantage.

Global businesses increasingly appreciate how design and design thinking can provide them with high-level, strategic value and competitive advantage. In an intensely competitive market, with ever more diverse and demanding customers, executives are often left unsure of exactly what products, communications and services to create for what segments of the market. Design, with its ability to understand users, redefine problems and create systemic, human-centered solutions, can help companies better understand their customer's daily lives, and lead directly to valuable (and valued) offerings that are effectively tailored to their market.