Page 30 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

18 Design Meets Business
organizations increasingly ask digital natives like certain designers (e.g. digital designers like interaction designers and user-interface designers) with knowledge of both hardware and software, to help them take hold of opportunities in the digital market. The interest in designers further heightened because of the need to develop more advanced customer expe- riences, upon which I elaborate next.
Further, popularity of design in business can also be explained by busi- ness’ interest in the customer perspective. In an Accenture report (Brozek 2015), our current era is called the ‘age of the customer’. Having access to an unlimited amount of information, the expectations of customers shifted. Whereas before the expectations were focused on one channel (for example; GPS location) now they are spread across various channels: customers now want a seamless experience regardless of the technology they use. As of today, customers expect to have access whenever and wherever they want, demanding that content is not only personalized but also relevant in the context of what they are doing. Moreover, customers nowadays expect “contextualized interactions; seamless experience across channels; anytime, anywhere access to content and services; transparency; and access to peer review and advocacy” (World Economic Forum 2016). Meeting such expectations is challenging for businesses. For businesses it has become more difficult to attract, win and keep customers. They need to engage in ‘ongoing innovation’ (Bartel & Garud 2009) by cons- tantly improving existing products and services. Because business profes- sionals are trained to think in terms of risk aversion and efficiency, they increasingly expressed their desire to collaborate with designers who are comfortable with messy problems and generating novelty (Brown 2009). Especially, companies expressed their interest to work with designers that apply principles of ‘human-centered’ design, by putting customer demands instead of business constraints at the center of innovation.
Another trend that heightened the business interest in design is that companies have embraced services as an engine of growth (Barrett et al. 2015). As of today, services account for around 60-75% annual gross value in the majority of the EU (UNCTAD 2004). An implication of this is that in the past years numerous organizations have reinvented their offerings. Instead of focusing solely on products, companies have shifted their orien- tation to developing the entire system around products, also referred to as ‘service’ (Secomandi & Snelders 2011). A notable example is Rolls Royce that offered ‘Power by the Hour’. Instead of selling car equipment such as aero engines, Rolls-Royce allowed its customers to buy the power that the aero-engine delivers. At the same time, Rolls Royce offered suppor- ting services to ensure that the aero-engines functioned well. Offering