What's the value of design to your organization?

Key Takeaways

**Challenge:** Many organizations treat design as an aesthetic "bolt-on" rather than a strategic driver, leading to wasted development and poor user adoption.

• **Solution:** Shifting from Level 1 (design as a tool) to Level 5 (design as strategy) ensures that product decisions are evidence-based rather than assumption-driven.

• **Financial Impact:** Top-tier design-led companies see 32% more revenue and 56% higher shareholder returns than their industry competitors.

• **Strategic Result:** 92% of companies with mature design functions can tie their design team's activities directly to measurable revenue growth and customer satisfaction.

Design as a Financial Multiplier

Is your organization treating design as a multiplier or a cost center? While many leaders view design as a marketplace differentiator, most still lead with technological solutions and treat user experience as an afterthought. Shifting to a mature, design-led strategy can increase revenue by 32% and drive shareholder returns 56% higher than competitors.

This observation was validated in 2018 in a McKinsey report, “The Business Value of Design,” which outlines the positive impact of design on corporate bottom lines. According to the report, over five years, companies that invested in good design had 32 percent more revenue and 56 percent more total returns to shareholders. [1]

In further support of this point, in 2019, InVision released a report, “The New Design Frontier: The widest-ranging report to date examining design’s impact on business.” The study found that 92 percent of companies with the most mature design functions could draw a straight line between their design teams’ work and their company’s revenue. Ninety-nine percent said customer satisfaction increased, and 85 percent increased cost savings. [2]

How Leaders View Design Maturity

Many leaders see product design as a marketplace differentiator. However, organizations continue to ignore or struggle with adopting better design practices. In many cases, companies lead with technological solutions and treat design as an afterthought. This has to do with the emphasis on design and where design practices fall in the product development cycle.

It’s important to note that design practices across organizations are not equal. Some organizations value and execute design better than others. InVision’s report identified five levels of design maturity, ranging from Level 1 (producers) to Level 5 (visionaries). Companies at higher levels of maturity don't just use design to make things "look good"—they use it to validate business roadmaps and solve complex operational problems before writing code.

The Cost of Ignoring User Experience

When design is sidelined, the technical debt and wasted development time pile up. Without a research-grounded design process, teams build features based on internal assumptions. This often leads to products that fail to gain traction in the market, requiring expensive reworks later in the lifecycle. Investing in design early acts as an insurance policy against feature failure.