User-centric business is at the heart of the design management profession

Researching and establishing 'user-value' is one of the most important activities within the scope of design management. All the business processes must be aligned to specify and deliver user-value based on a holistic understanding of the target users and their context of use of the proposed product/service. 

Continually improving and managing the business processes and product quality through user research, design research, market research, user-centred designing/engineering, and product evaluations with representative end-users is the essence of design management. 

The graphic representation above is the fundamental framework that a design manager has to bear in mind at all times. This new paradigm of business enables the business managers to integrate the diversity of stakeholder interests in an optimized whole. 

Further... some more pertinent points

I have observed that the traditional education of engineers enables them to be technology-focused which unfortunately makes them oblivious of the end-users and other human components in the entire business systems.  The same is true of the traditionally trained business managers who mostly engage their minds and energies in the domain of marketing, making profits, and increasingly market-capitalizing their businesses. Similarly, designers from traditional design education have been focused on designing great 'forms' which often overlook the real end-user needs. (For those who seriously pursue the cutting-edge global business practices, understanding users and people is now a profession by itself.)

Fortunately, we have some business firms, such as Apple, McDonalds, IKEA, and Toyota that have demonstrated that being user-centric makes good business sense. These firms are legendary in their vision, and business growth and sustenance. They are a great source of inspiration and confidence for those who believe in the vision and objectives of the user-centric strategic business. 

Without doubt, for delivering high-quality products, excellent engineering, marketing, and financial management are the key at the end of the day. The upcoming profession of design management therefore needs to excel in achieving integrated user-centric solutions by employing a 'systems approach' along with 'design thinking'.

Copyright (c) August 24 2009 Vinai Kumar

A Framework for Studying Business Systems

- with the aim of understanding of product quality, end-users, people, stakeholders and the context

The following is a framework to understand, and ideate about the creation, development and maintenance of a business system with a systems thinking perspective.

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Business system components	Issues and sub-components of relevance
Business unit	Strategic vision, beliefs and values;  quality perspective Characteristics and specifications of the product(s) Critical benchmarks and success factors Business value of the offerings Business model Business processes and systems Domain knowledge, skills, and intelligence Business infrastructure Financials Marketability Sustainability in the marketplace
End user	Expectations Quality-of-life beliefs and paradigms Perceived value of the offering - usablility - usefulness - desirability Previous experiences - pain points - missing or unusable features and functionalities
Employees and other people (Suppliers, experts, vendors)	Identification with and belief in:  - vision, mission and values associated with  the offerings of the business
Environment (Natural)	Environmental impact - Flora and fauna - Pollution - Depletion - Climate change - 4 Rs - Reuse, Recylce, Regenerate, Reduce
Environment (Man-made)	Includes: - Legal - Economic - Governmental - Technical - Market - Infrastructure - Culture - Law and order

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Figure 1: A Framework for Studying a Business System with a Design Thinking and Systems Thinking paradigm

Copyright (c)   Vinai Kumar    August  02  2009   16:00   A'bad India

Kaizen for Education in Business Management

Professional ‘management’ in the context of organizations and activities related to business and/or social goals involves understanding the constituent elements and their relationships with each other in order to achieve some predetermined results. These results could include, for example, supplying better quality shirts in a particular market, making certain level of profits, getting entry into a new market, or improving the quality of potato chips in comparison to the competition.

Most of the elements of relevance for an organized business or social activity can be categorized into the following:

-       Organizational goals

-       Resources

-       Processes and Systems

-       Infrastructure

-       Environment

-       Organizational culture and values

-       People - their characteristics, roles and values

-       Perceptions of the future

In the management literature you will generally find the mention of the following core management functions:

-       Finance and Accounting

-       Marketing

-       Human Resource

-       General Management (Strategic Planning, Tactical Management, Operations Management, Project Management, etc.)

This categorization reflects the roots of the management profession in the hardcore business of making profits by mobilizing and optimizing resources to produce a product or service and sell it to the customers in some pre-identified markets.

However, since the beginning of the Industrial era, the business environment has been constantly evolving and throwing new challenges continually. In the 80s the global competition in the marketplace spearheaded by the Japanese in the consumer products domain necessitated the need for new strategies for product development and design.

In the 90s the opening up of the formerly localized economies like India, China and Russia generated the high volume of international trading and marketing like never before. In the same era, the advent of the Internet and worldwide web threw tremendous challenges for the old business models based on ‘brick and mortar’ paradigm. The 2000s have been seeing a phenomenal impact of mobile and portable technologies on business and social activities.

The continuing emergence of new management issues requires the creation and development of new management functions. Some of these are:

-       International business

-       Business laws

-       Information technology

-       R&D management

-       Product development and design

-       Quality management

-       Knowledge management

-       Infrastructure management

-       Corporate social responsibility

-       Environment and sustainability

-       Design thinking and design management

This list, although not comprehensive, does indicate the impact of the changing business and social scenarios on the management practices. It is then imperative for those organizations involved in delivering appropriate value to their stakeholders and end-users to continually re-equip themselves through education, training in new methods and tools, and the development of their ability to deal with the emerging future scenarios.

Copyright (c)  Vinai Kumar  

Designers and Design Management

Designers add business value to ideas and existing products when they provide their services to businesses. To deliver effectively in the business context, designers need to have an understanding of the various business management functions and issues that impact the quality and delivery of designs. Most design schools all over the world have focused on mainly the 'formal' and 'aesthetic' aspects of design though some have now started focusing on interaction and user experience aspects as well. A very small number of design schools have now started introducing the business management knowledge in their curriculum. 

The traditional engineers, business managers and administrators too lack an understanding of design profession that could help them in working closely and effectively with designers and design thinkers. While they can understand some aspects of the designers' way of problem-solving and thinking by observing their activities and reading about the designers and design processes, it generally results in a superficial understanding to of the potential and effectiveness of the incorporation of design in business. 

Design Management is envisaged to be a bridge between design and management that enables a business to deliver an integrated user-centric product. Design Management is also emerging as a profession with its unique set of insights, skills, methods and tools, and a knowledge base that is more than just a mechanical combination of design and management knowledge. It is reasonable to posit that in future many businesses which are expected to be customer-oriented will be increasingly using the services of managers who understand what it takes to develop and deliver integrated human-oriented products and services in a business context.

In order to blend seamlessly in a business environment, all designers need to understand the vision and objectives of design management for the greater business-relevant maturity in their professional attitude and collaborative orientation which in turn will lead to the development of high quality solutions, and their appropriate delivery and implementation.

Copyright (c)   Vinai Kumar

The Indian Challenges for Design Management

In India we tend to acquire new professional knowledge from the developed world, and deploy them generally without much of contextualization and further development of the concerned knowledge domain. As a result, educational institutions continue imparting generic knowledge and skills to their students. In order to further their understanding, examples and case studies from the developed countries are frequently used. This approach for education in the country leads to an aberration in the understanding and their applicability in our local context. 

Design Management is an emerging profession in the country. The roots of this profession can be traced to the countries like UK and USA, as indicated by the literature available in English. The Design Management Institute (DMI) and the Design Council of UK have been at the forefront in this regard. The emphasis in the design management literature has been on branding and new product development in the context of the developed markets with high consumer spending and awareness levels. The insights gained from this context have only a partial relevance to the societies and markets with a significantly different demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles. 

Professional education in any domain has to be supported with indigenous research, explorations, and learnings for it to be relevant for effective and sustainable ideas and solutions. It is then imperative that we explore the Indian context of the issues and challenges in the area of design management.  

(C) Copyright  Vinai Kumar

User, Context, Quality and Design

In the previous post I recorded my thoughts on the need for a framework and methods to assess the value of design in a business context before the design takes its place in real-life.  In my experience, I have found two key components that are central to the assessment of the value of design based on an understanding of user and context. Here it is important to note that the user is the central theme of all holistic human-centred design activities, and the customer is the central theme of business activities. 

A design (of a product or service) must meet the physical, psychological and task requirements of the end-user as well as the customer (the latter actually pays for the perceived value/quality of the design). Many essential and desirable specific value parameters emerge from a detailed analysis of user and context. For example, a user may like to have a good camera in his or her mobile phone but may not require a good music and radio features. However, the same person may require a different set of features in his mobile phone if he switches to a job profile that requires extensive international traveling.  

The context in which a user and product relationship exists is made up of the natural environment, societal practices and culture, individual's work and life patterns, technologies available, and man-made environmental factors.  

Design as a professional discipline provides a way of thinking and developing solutions based on the understanding of the user and context. A design activity with this orientation culminates in defining a set of product values and accompanying specifications. For the marketplace, these values and specifications would appear as the quality characteristics and features of a product. 

I believe that if we target the appropriate user samples and the relevant slices of the contexts for research and product evaluation, it would be possible to produce evidence of the greater possibility of product success in the real marketplace. 

The discipline of ergonomics provides a comprehensive knowledge base and methodology to understand the users and their activities in a given context. Also the approaches of anthropology and ethnography prove to be useful in observing and recording the activities and behaviour of people in their real-life situations. The designer's way of observing people and recording information visually and textually is an open-ended, open-minded, and intuitive way of understanding people and their behaviours. Combined with inputs and insights from engineering, business management, and many other relevant areas, design and design thinking are capable of producing user and context relevant products.

Copyright (c)  Vinai Kumar

Business Value of Design

Business Value of Design

How does one assess the business value of design? The question is not easy to answer. Precise measurements are possible only when an event takes place in real, and when the number of variables is small. The real-life, however, is too complex and dynamic to enable the development of valid metrics and to facilitate their precise measurement. 

The Economic Times, Ahmedabad (21 July 2009) reported Coca-Cola's intention to engage their advertising agencies on the basis of a result-based payment system. This is an interesting development though for a long time there have been doubts about the usefulness of advertising in terms of fetching business in proportion to the spend on advertising. However, the concept of advertising along with its glamour quotient has been sold so well that businesses did not question its Return-on-Investment (ROI) ability. 

The issue of the value of design (as a professional activity and its ensuing  deliverables) is in some way similar to case of advertising (design). If the proof of the pudding is in eating it, the proof of design is in its intended users paying for it and effectively using it. In this competitive and media-driven world some designs are often given "good" design awards - as it happens so frequently in the design and architecture communities. However, the intended users might be reluctant in using these, and in some cases abandon them all together. The Palio car from Fiat is a good car, technologically speaking, though it has failed to make any significant impact in the marketplace.  A lot of buildings designed by professional architects are good as signature forms in a landscape but fail miserably when end-users use it and experience it. 

Though some companies like IKEA, Apple, and 3M have leveraged design and innovation to impact the economic bottom line of their businesses, most of those involved in running businesses still lack a framework and methods to assess the business value of their offerings before they put them in the marketplace. I believe that there is a need to research this area in a concerted and holistic manner. 

If design as an important management function has to claim its rightful place in business, the design and design management researchers have to develop frameworks and methods that would aid in assessing the value of design in a business context. In some of the following posts I will present some useful directions in this regard based on my experience and learnings in the field of design, human factors engineering, engineering, and design management.

(c) Copyright  Vinai Kumar