Redesigning businesses

Collective design for better results

Seven participants from diverse industries attended the Doughnut Design for Business workshop at the beginning of September: software, education, food production, and lighting. 

There was a world traveller, a startup, a 100-year-old family business and three SMEs.

Participants valued the diversity of perspectives, and breakthrough ideas came from interactive discussions. They also appreciated that we were two co-facilitators and the dynamics it created.

Introducing transformative ideas


Here are some ideas that emerged during the workshop:

Examples of transformative regenerative and distributive ideas identified in the workshop.


  • Make service accessible to deaf people.
  • Sell customized products 
  • Diversify our offering to avoid dependence on a degenerative sector
  • Relocate production to France
  • Reuse materials from end-of-life products recovered from our customers (creating a circular economy loop)
  • Local sourcing
  • Participative governance with employees
  • Create a national network of partners to act locally and reduce travels 
  • Create an open-source platform 

Examples of the current design of the businesses that block and enable such ideas.

  • Profit-driven Board of Directors
  • Top-down governance
  • The mentalities and worldview of the management team challenging to change
  • Performance indicators that focus solely on profit maximization and the financial dimension.


Examples of ideas for business redesign and how these could enable transformative ideas.

  • No margin for developing countries
  • Define and adopt new indicators (social and environmental) to complement financial and market share indicators.


Challenges and insights that emerged in exploring transformative ideas and business redesign.

  • Train employees on the Doughnut and organize in-house workshops
  • Set up new indicators
  • Raise awareness internally with Rapid Doughnut Mapping


Ways the tool can evolve to better support businesses on the business redesign journey.


  • One-day in-company workshop 
  • More group reflections
  • Include stakeholders 
  • Provide additional content on innovations about the five layers (examples and new models).


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