Design is the Most Undervalued Growth Lever in Modern Business
Written by Craig Edis, Founder
Craig Edis is the founder of The Wink Collective, where he helps designers bridge the gap between craft and business. A product leader and service design expert, he empowers designers to develop strategic, professional, and creative skills that make them indispensable across industries.
In the high-velocity world of startups and scaling enterprises, capital is often treated as the primary fuel for growth. Organizations invest aggressively in customer acquisition, engineering talent, and sales infrastructure. Yet, many of these same organizations leave their most powerful strategic lever design sitting idle on the sidelines. In the typical corporate hierarchy, design is frequently treated as an executional layer, a final coat of paint applied to a project once the real strategic decisions have been made.
This is a profound strategic oversight that results in wasted investment and missed market opportunities. Design is not merely an aesthetic function, it is a discipline rooted in psychology, clarity, efficiency, and measurable impact. Whether it is the architecture of a digital product, the narrative of a brand, or the flow of a marketing campaign, design is the engine that translates business intent into human behaviour. To move from execution to impact, leadership must stop viewing design as a department and start viewing it as a core pillar of business strategy.
The startup trap of building before designing
For early-stage companies, the pressure to reach a minimum viable product often leads to a dangerous shortcut, neglecting design in favour of pure engineering. This “build now, design later” mentality is a significant financial risk. When a startup fails to factor in user experience and market alignment from the beginning, they often find themselves building a high-performance engine for a car that no one knows how to drive.
Integrating design into early-stage planning is a massive de-risking tool. It ensures that the product-market fit is validated through usability and clarity before a single line of expensive code is written. Research from Forrester indicates that every dollar invested in user experience can return up to 100 dollars, a staggering 9,900 percent ROI. Conversely, data from IBM and IEEE suggest that fixing a conceptual flaw during the design phase is 10 times cheaper than fixing it during development, and 100 times cheaper than fixing it after launch. For a startup, this efficiency isn't just a preference, it is a matter of survival.
Moving from likability to success
One of the most common barriers to growth is prioritizing “likability” over “success.” In many boardrooms, design decisions are governed by personal preference, the subjective tastes of the leadership team. This approach undervalues the expertise of the designer and de-prioritizes the needs of the customer.
Strategic design is objective. It is governed by data, user behaviour, and commercial goals. When a design choice is tied to a specific business outcome, such as reducing customer churn or increasing lead generation, it ceases to be an opinion and becomes a strategic asset. By removing subjectivity from the creative process, organizations can focus on the only metric that matters: measurable results. Success is not about what we “like,” it is about what works.
The hidden benefits of culture and hiring
The impact of design maturity extends far beyond visual design, it transforms the internal health and competitive advantage of an organization. According to InVision’s The New Design Frontier report, companies with high design maturity are five times more likely to report that design directly impacts cost savings and operational efficiency.
Cultural alignment and collaboration: A design-led culture is a collaborative culture. When a business values design thinking, it encourages cross-functional teams to work together to solve problems from the user’s perspective. This breaks down silos between engineering, marketing, and sales, creating a shared language of outcome over output. This alignment reduces the invisible friction that often slows down innovation in scaling companies.
The hiring advantage: Top-tier talent does not want to work in an environment where they are treated as order takers. High-level professionals, especially those with the soft skills and communication maturity required for leadership, seek out organizations where design is a strategic partner. A business that respects design as a growth lever attracts talent that is more interested in solving complex problems than pushing pixels.
Brand value as a competitive moat: Design is the visual manifestation of a company’s promise. In a crowded market, brand clarity is what builds the trust required to command a premium price. The Design Management Institute’s Design Value Index showed that design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by an extraordinary 211 percent over a ten-year period. Strategic design ensures that the brand narrative is consistent across every touchpoint, building long-term brand equity that competitors cannot easily replicate.
Bridging the literacy gap for growth
The reason design remains undervalued is a systemic failure of communication. Design is often invisible inside organizations because it is not being translated into the language of business.
When design teams cannot articulate their value in commercial terms, and leadership teams lack the design literacy to set objective metrics, the growth gap widens.
This disconnect results in diluted brand clarity and underperforming products. To bridge this gap, leadership must empower designers to act as strategic partners. This means bringing design into the “fuzzy front end” of planning, where the most critical strategic decisions are made, rather than just the final stage of delivery.
Summary of design as a performance engine
To thrive in an increasingly competitive market, organizations must stop hiring decorators and start empowering designers. The evidence is unambiguous: investments in design deliver meaningful, long-term returns. Research from the McKinsey Design Index shows that companies with high design maturity achieved 32 percent stronger revenue growth and 56 percent higher total shareholder returns over five years.
When design is integrated into the core of a business, it acts as a performance engine that powers every touchpoint of the customer journey. It turns aesthetic choices into strategic advantages and creative ideas into commercial leverage. Design is not an expense, it is the most powerful growth lever a modern business has.
Strategic action steps for leadership
Audit your design maturity: Evaluate where design currently sits in your process. Is it at the table during strategy, or is it an afterthought?
Establish objective metrics: Shift the conversation from “Do we like this?” to “Does this move our primary business KPI?”
Focus on market alignment: Use design to validate your brand narrative and user experience before scaling your marketing spend.
Wink Consulting specializes in helping organizations and startups close the gap between business strategy and design impact. We work with leadership teams to improve cross-functional efficiency, de-risk launches, and turn design into a measurable performance engine for growth. Learn more at Wink Consulting.
Read more from Craig Edis
Craig Edis, Founder
Craig Edis is the founder of The Wink Collective, where he helps designers bridge the gap between craft and business. A product leader and service design expert, he teaches designers how to communicate value, lead clients, and turn creativity into measurable business impact. Through his Design For Business programs, Craig equips designers with the professional skills and confidence they need to operate strategically and be seen as indispensable. His mission is to redefine professional design, empowering designers to influence decisions, defend bold ideas, and thrive across industries.
