We are devoted to spreading ideas and giving a voice to people that circle around the intersection of business and design. We passionately believe that the role of design in the context of business is becoming increasingly important for the future.
The collective is regularly publishing content on a variety of topics in the field of Design Leadership and Operations, Service Design, Business Design, Innovation, Intra- and Entrepreneurship.
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The term ‘design’ has been increasing in popularity in recent years and is touted as a novel way to develop services or products from a customer perspective. Consulting companies and business magazines urge business leaders to infuse or even transform their companies by integrating design-led approaches. With business and design being mentioned in the same sentence more and more often, we asked ourselves - how are they actually interrelated?
As a word, ‘design’ is a kind of faux-ami. Various disciplines use it, from technology through IT to arts. And while the underlying elements are the same, everyone understands it from their specific perspective. So when it comes to discussing design across disciplines, people believe their discussion partner shares their own view - but in reality there is often a disagreement in meaning. So to clarify, we first specify what our understanding of design is.
By designing we aim to shape a particular product or service from a user perspective and with an iterative process. Designing includes, in our view, 3 main areas: the shaping of the offering itself, how the service or product is experienced before, during, and after usage, and also the internal processes applied by the entity offering the service or product. Design is also a collaborative process involving customers, employees from different departments and even particular domain experts outside of an organization. Design is an iterative approach using prototypes to validate ideas and learn. Design therefore is far more than just the graphic representation, or just the technical description, or just the interaction flow, or just the business model.
With our articles we want to take you with us on our journey to dig deeper into the relationship between design and business with a particular focus on management. What does it mean for business people and designers to work together? What kind of design practices are already used by management and what kind of management practices by designers? Our insights build on exchanges with design leaders, educators and managers in Switzerland, Europe and beyond, from a diverse set of companies.