The importance of design in innovation
Appropriate use of design can stimulate innovation, adding value to your services and exploiting new markets
Design tools and processes can generate innovative new ideas, improve business performance and help growth.
Businesses do not always require a creative element to be successful. However, while your business runs as normal, a designer can explore new and different ways of turning your ideas into real products or services.
How a designer can help you innovate
Designers can help you create and manage a strategic innovation project for your business that may:
- add value to your products and services
- stimulate sales growth
- exploit new markets
Design is about more than creating the look and feel of a final product. Designers can offer a wider variety of insights which can help your business become more innovative. Their methods and processes include:
- research - which focuses on what your customers need and want
- brainstorming - which creates lots of ideas quickly
- prototyping - which lets you check viability of your ideas early in the innovation process
These design techniques can be incorporated into the existing research and development functions of businesses of any size.
To achieve good results, it is important to involve a designer from the beginning of the project. For more information, see managing your design projects and how can I use design in my business.