Superior company performance

The key test of the value of design from a business perspective is whether a design aware company outperforms its competitors who are not. The Design Council (2005)Design Council (2005) Design Index: The impact of design on stock market performance. Available from www.design-council.org.uk showed that an index of design aware companies outperformed the FTSE All share by over 200% in both bull and bear markets over a 10 year period.

There are clearly other indicators of good management apart from design, however, the evidence that ‘good design is good business’ is compelling.

Corporate level risk management

Design is not optional. It is an inevitable consequence of specifying or developing a product or service. The question is whether your design is good, bad or indifferent. Good design helps to manage development risk, asking

• Are you building the right products (or services)?
• Are you building the product right?

These two questions are fundamental to understanding and mitigating risk. It is imperative that the business at a strategic level empowers those developing and managing products to use design effectively to reap the benefit at a corporate level. See the Corporate implications section for more detail on this issue.