We live in a constantly evolving and increasingly competitive business landscape. New products and services are unleashed on the market every single minute. In this fast-changing environment, creating new products and services that meet the needs of the people and add value to their life is a challenge. Customer expectations are soaring as global corporations such as Amazon and Google provide innovative digital solutions, blurring the lines between hardware, software and services. For example, both companies' voice-activated assistants—Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa—have integrated users’ real and virtual lives, bridging the gap between hardware and software. Users can now control everything from boiling the kettle to opening their garage doors at the click of a button on their smartphones.

There is a clear link between good design and business success across various industries including consumer goods, retail banking and medical technology. In fact, design is already an integral part of existing businesses—human-machine interactions, AI and engineering psychology are just a few examples. For example, Audi is pioneering a human-powered and self-driving hybrid car, while Dyson’s unique vacuum designs ensure their products stand out for both form and function. Clearly, functionality and good design are crucial to leaving a long-lasting impact on potential customers.

Nowadays, people expect and demand practical, functional, and convenient products and services. Design is the crucial tool that enables businesses to innovate and disrupt not only products and services, but whole industries, with the aim of improving user experience. Using insights, data, and active listening, you will learn to understand people’s motivations and behavior. You will then be able to personalize products and services accordingly so that they remain valuable. As you create better design strategies to meet people’s needs, you will attract more users and enjoy the added bonus of increased revenue.

Take Netflix as an example. This multinational company is constantly tapping into what the people want, providing an endless range of TV shows and films to satisfy everyone. On top of this, they use data insights to understand their users’ behavior and offer them personalized recommendations. As digital technology advances more rapidly than ever, it is innovation like this that helps businesses to stay one step ahead of their competitors.

Nowadays, designers are occupying more and more space at the planning table. The smartest, most successful companies are combining business management and design experts to create bold and lucrative products and services.

Customer analytics and ROI are two of the most important ways to measure how well a company is performing. However, adopting an analytical approach to design is just as useful for measuring business success. Companies can now incorporate design metrics, such as usability assessments and satisfaction ratings into product specifications. These can then be used to gather highly accurate insights.

Companies can use such insights to track their sales and identify where most of their profit comes from, in turn discerning what aspects of their business bring in the most and least revenue. They can then use this information to work on areas that need improving, saving them time, money, and effort as they know exactly which parts of their company to develop.

Business design represents the middleman between corporate strategy and design thinking, moving beyond aesthetics to evaluate how business and design can complement each other.

By combining design methodologies, a design mindset, and business tools, business design can solve business problems, optimize user experience, and increase revenue. In the words of Steve Jobs, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Apple expertly demonstrates this with Apple Pay—a digital wallet service which seamlessly blurs the boundaries between business and digital design by allowing customers to access cash from a device almost everyone carries in their pocket.

Mastering the business behind design, and the design behind business helps to transform business objectives and user needs into meaningful, valuable, and creative solutions. Design strategy involves thinking both analytically and outside the box in order to innovate and implement completely new ideas and processes. Products and services are ultimately improved as a result. Combining business and design strategy therefore helps products and services become better aligned to business goals and customer needs, in turn increasing commercial success.

According to software giant Adobe, organizations with a strong design perform 219% better on the Stock Market’s S&P Index over a ten year period than those with poor design. Likewise, the design of a business’ website is crucial for determining that business’ credibility. Therefore, not only does design attract customers, but it also increases trust and convinces them to stay. And with increased loyalty comes an increase in sales and revenue.

Ultimately, fusing good design with great business practices is the key to increasing business efficiency and cost-effectivity, integrating the brand, customer and the product or service.