The Business of Design

Over the past couple of years, in my role as a Design Leader, I have been responsible for establishing the practise of design as a new capability and honing this into a significant lever for competitive advantage for organisations. From building teams of talented designers and design strategy practitioners, to creating a culture conducive to the practise of design in a manner that it aligns with the business and strategic goals of an organisation, the journey has been challenging one, yet extremely exciting and fulfilling too.

In my most recent role as Executive Creative Director and Head of Design at PwC India’s Experience Consulting practise, I have been focussing on bringing alive this new capability within the firm, showcasing its relevance and growing internal traction. At the same time spreading the word externally, amongst our clients, customers and partners. This meant creating a platform to showcase our credibility in this domain – the domain of experience design and design strategy, something not readily associated with the firm.

To showcase and socialize this new capability, I led an initiative, along with my team at PwC, to author a report that presented a fact based and detailed perspective on design as a key lever for value creation and its significant role in strategic business thinking today. We developed this report for Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies), as a part of its Design4India design initiative. We spoke to design leaders and business leaders across a variety of multi-national and domestic organisations, and across sectors, to create a synthesized view on the emerging new business value of design in India. This report, titled - ‘India, by Design’, was launched in November 2019.

Below:
Images from the ‘India, by Design’ Design Report, and the ‘Design for Experience’ toolkit, designed and developed by the design team at PwC India