12th
FastCompany: Letter from the Editor (Oct 07)
What does design really contribute to an organization’s bottom line? In a global marketplace where price competition and commodification have slashed margins and “reengineered” jobs, it can be easy to peg what designers do as an indulgence—style over substance, form over function. Committing business resources toward the tangible is just more efficient than—sniff—the soft world of design.
Many executives across corporate America embrace this ostensibly utilitarian approach, and many more pay lip service to the value of design without investing their dollars (or their psyches) in it. Sure, Steve Jobs may make design an advantage at Apple, this line of thinking goes. But what does that have to do with me?
Plenty. Studies have now shown that design-oriented firms in all kinds of industries outperform their more-traditional peers—that design and innovation go hand-in-hand with financial success. Research from Peer Insight has calculated a tenfold advantage in stock-market returns versus the S&P 500 for companies focused on consumer-experience design
