The Four Powers of Design: A Value Model in Design Management

Printemps 2006
by Brigitte Borja de Mozota, Professor, Management Science, Université Paris X, Nantere, France, DMI Life Fellow
Télécharger l'article complet (PDF - 450 Ko)

This analysis proposes a framework to bridge the gap between the world of designers and the world of managers. Illuminating her thesis with examples from Steelcase, Decathlon, and other companies, Brigitte Borja de Mozota parallels design’s ability to differentiate, integrate, transform, and contribute to the enterprise and bottom-line results with a corporate focus on markets, processes, talent, and finances.

In summer 2005, BusinessWeek published a 20-page special report on building innovative companies.”(1) The report celebrates the emergence of a “creativity economy” in which managers are starting to discover “design strategy.” In addition, Innovation 2005, Boston Consulting Group’s second annual survey of 940 senior executives, ranked two icons of the design community, Apple and Sony, in the top five of the world’s twenty most innovative companies. Taking their cue from the creativity economy, universities and business schools from Toronto to Paris are taking up new collaborations with design schools.

Although the trend in favor of design can be seen as a way to promote design as a qualified partner for innovation and management, it’s a trend that tends to forget about design management—a simplistic view that risks relegating design skills to the vague realm of creativity and the development of “wow” products, conveying the idea that merely collaborating with designers is enough.

Instead, business managers should know about design management’s power to create value in companies, which has been proven through research and can also be demonstrated through management concepts such as Michael Porter’s value chain. In this article, I hope to describe to design professionals a research-based value model for design management and to convey to them how this model can be implemented using Robert Kaplan’s and David Norton’s Balanced Score Card (BSC) decision tool2—a tool that should be familiar to all kinds of business managers.

(1) : “Get Creative: How To Build Innovative Companies,” BusinessWeek, August 1, 2005

Télécharger l'article complet (PDF - 450 Ko)