Concept Mapping and Its Benefit in Business Strategy

Compared to plain text, the human brain processes visuals better. Concept maps serve to illustrate relationships between ideas and reinforce prior knowledge by linking additional information. Therefore, concept maps can be used to analyze information and compare other concepts.

Because their function is to see and understand the relationships between things, concept maps can be used for a variety of purposes. Starting from classes, content or projects that require visual elements, to other things to see and understand the relationships between things.

What is a Concept Map?

Developed in 1972 by scientists and researchers from the United States, concept maps were originally used to make students easily understand basic science concepts. However, nowadays conceptual mapping is not only used in research and education, but also in other fields such as government and business.

Concept maps are visual representations of information. Can take the form of charts, graphs, tables, flowcharts, timelines, and Venn diagrams, concept maps are useful for students who want to learn better. The concept of learning like this is often a strategy for students.

Concept Map Benefits

In product development, engineers, designers, and product owners can use concept maps. This is done so that you can see and highlight the relationships between ideas during the development stage or view the project cycle.

This allows brands to create work plans that cover all the bases, including minimizing risks. Not only that, concept maps have several benefits for various fields that you can get.

1. Facilitate learning

Concept maps were developed by researchers to make it easier for students to understand learning material. In practice, this makes a lot of sense because with concept maps you can start from a higher level of concepts.

In that way, concept maps will help you summarize information by key sequences. In other words, knowing the big picture makes the details more meaningful and easier to remember.

2. Develop concepts and strategies

To share business ideas and create strategic action plans, use concept maps. You can start from research topics, business problems that you want to solve, to ways that must be taken to carry them out.

Keep in mind that you only need to choose one main topic. If the topic is too broad, the concept map can become too large and unhelpful.

For example, if you want to discuss 'online shopping' as a topic that is too broad, narrow your focus. There are many concepts that need to be researched, such as the history of online shopping, statistics related to online shopping, the impact of the pandemic on online shopping and so on.

Another example, regarding starting an e-commerce business, your concept map list should include product research, shipping, payment systems, marketing, and customer service. By illustrating the relationship between tactics and knowledge, concept maps are expected to encourage critical and creative thinking.

3. Communicate findings

If you are a researcher, concept maps can be used to think about new research topics, all the way to the final stage. To organize your thoughts, in the early stages you can start thinking about research products by creating a concept map. Then, when new facts emerge from that thought, modify your concept map.

These changes will continue with your research. This is very reasonable, because making a concept map is an iterative process. From here you will learn to sort out your own concepts. In the final stage, namely a thesis, dissertation or research article, use the concept map to brainwash your findings.

When you have an invention or an idea, it is very important to share knowledge, so that the audience can more easily understand and be interested in your idea. Here, a concept map that is minimal in text and visually appealing is a great strategy for presenting your ideas in one attractive and informative figure.

Being personalized, concept maps provide an opportunity to organize the material in the way that makes the most sense to you. Therefore, there is nothing wrong or right in making a concept map. You only need to focus on ideas and connect them to produce an overview of the project to be executed.