Design becomes a competitive advantage

Design--the soul of the company

Design, there is a trend to replace the technology as the most important competitive advantage of the company. The United States "Business Weekly" wrote this year's Industrial Design Award: When faced with a variety of choices do not know what to do, consumers tend to design as a new distinguishing sign. In countless similar products and services, design is an important factor that can make people "light up." Dahe Dianxiong, the former chairman of Sony Corporation of Japan, once said: “At Sony, we assume that all products of competitors are the same technology, price, performance and features as our products. The only design is unique and it is ours. The product is distinguished from other products on the market.". Ten years ago, people linked innovation and technology. Now, the synonym for innovation is design.

Design has always been superficial, decorative, and beautiful. However, the design has changed. Tom Peters, a management guru who has always advocated design concepts, believes that design is where the soul of the company lies. Design principles drive and redefine modern companies. The common idea is to define industrial design as “applied art that can enhance product aesthetics and practicality.” While full of personality and good-looking packaging can certainly promote product sales, design is no longer just giving product shape and color in a pure sense. It is now about how to fundamentally re-plan strategies and design products and services from a consumer perspective.

Design is not an appearance. It is information that needs to be repeated and emphasized. When most companies try to improve their design competitiveness, the first reaction is to look for “designers.” Those who are called designers are mainly from art and fine arts. But as long as we look at the design of IDEO, the world's best design company, we know that design is not an appearance: the first step for IDEO to design products is to understand the known limitations of market, customers, technology, and related issues; they look at reality. People living in real life, to find out what they are thinking about; they envisage the customer to use the product scene, stand on the customer's point of view to experience; next is to evaluate and refine the model; finally adjust the model to be suitable for commercial production of the final product design.