Practice of “Business Model” Subject as a Part of Design Thinking Education in Faculty of Engineering and Design

This paper introduces “Introduction to Business Models”, a specialized course for third-year students established by the Faculty of Engineering and Design at Kagawa University in 2018. The primary purpose of this class is to improve students’ ability to think from multiple perspectives through understanding the business models of various companies and to become familiar with the Business Model Canvas (BMC) used in the class so that they can use it in the design thinking process. The class consisted of an explanation of the BMC, an analysis of a leading U.S. company using the BMC, an analysis of a company chosen freely by each student, and a plenary presentation of selected submitted materials. Class management was designed to promote reframing and the formation of collective knowledge. This class can be said to be a prototype of a class for learning business models.