October 1, 2006

The Vital Role of Design

Fast Company's annual design issue is always packed with great stories of individuals and companies that recognize the power of good design. This year's issue features an article describing the need to balance what the author calls "a value system premised on what's valid and one based on what's reliable."

A "reliable process" is one that is predictable and measurable. You identify what works, and you extrapolate it and/or replicate it.

Whereas a "valid process" - according to this author - "flows from designers' deep understanding of both user and context, and leads them to ideas they believe in but can't prove.

Any good company needs both...AND the leadership to recognize that need and have the ability to navigate through both value systems.

A good example is A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Proctor & Gamble. He loves numbers, but he is also persuaded by anecdotal customer research. And that has led to P&G introducing new products that could never have been produced by a purely "reliable process."

Theodore Levitt

One of our legendary professors at business school, Theodore Levitt, died this year. He leaves not only a legacy of legions of students whom he taught but also extensive writings on his chosen field, marketing.

The current issue of The Harvard Business Review includes exerpts from some of Levitt's articles.

Some of my favorite quotes (many of which were written as long as 45 years ago!):

"The relationship between a seller and a buyer seldom ends when a sale is made. Increasingly, the relationship intensifies after the sale and determines the buyer's choice the next time around.....It is not a matter of just getting and then holding on to customers. It is more a matter of giving the buyers what they want. Buyers want vendors who keep promises, who'll keep supplying and standing behind what they promised....During the era we are entering, the emphasis will be on systems contracts, and buyer-seller relationships will be characterized by continuous contacgt and evolving relationships to effect the systems. The 'sale' will not be just a system but a system over time. The value at stake will be be the advantages of that system over time."
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"Services, delivery, reliability, responsiveness, and the quality of the human and organizational interactions between seller and buyer will be more important than the technology itself."
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"One of the surest signs of a bad or declining relationship is the absence of complaints from the customer. Nobody is ever that satisfied, especially not over an extendid period of time. The customer is either not being candid or not being contacted - probably both."
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"There is no such thing as a commodity. All goods and services are differentiable....On the commodities exchanges...what they 'sell' is the claimed distinction of their execution...In short, the offered product is differentiated, though the generic product is identical."
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