Moving Towards a Design-Led Company
by Carolyn Gawkowski
Across industries, design-led companies generate significantly higher revenues and total returns to shareholders than their industry peers. - McKinsey, The Business Value of Design
What does it mean to say that a company is design-led? Does that mean it has to be run by designers or that you need creative people in charge of every decision?
Not at all. Remember that design is not just done by designers. Everything in a company is designed, from the floor plan, to the schedules, to the project roadmaps, to the customer-facing deliverables whether digital or physical. So when we talk about design, we’re not limiting it to the work performed by designers. We are talking about a conscious, customer-centric design process that should be part of the company culture.
McKinsey’s research shows that there are four key things that design led companies do that others do not:
At the executive level, they adopt an analytical approach to design and measure their company's performance in this area
They establish a user-centric culture by removing internal barriers (between physical products, services, and digital interactions, for example) that don't exist for customers
They empower cross-functional design teams (note: that doesn’t mean just designers) that take responsibility for improving the user experience
Iterate quickly, test, and learn as soon as the first idea is developed until the final launch is completed, incorporating user insights from day one
Interested in building a program like this? Here’s one more insight that McKinsey shared to get you on track: choose one project to pilot this approach. If you execute it according to a deep understanding of user needs, desires and values, you can show people how well this process works.