What Is A Business Designer? Business Design In A Nutshell

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A business designer is a person that helps organizations to find and test a business model that can be tested and iterated so that value can be captured by the organization in the long run. Business design is the discipline, set of tools and processes that help entrepreneurs prototype business models and test them in the marketplace.

From design thinking to business design

In the world of design thinking, a process of iteration is put in place to seek understanding of a key stakeholder: the user. The primary goal is to iterate as quickly as possible on the assumptions made about what users want, and only when data is gathered and feedback is learned that the whole process makes the product improve.

Business design is built on the same premises of design thinking, with a primary difference. Where design thinking helps build products users love. Business design helps entrepreneurs build organizations that thrive in the marketplace via innovation.

Business design definition

There isn’t a single definition of business design. At its core, though the business design is about creating a long-term competitive advantage for an organization by designing business models that can be tested and turned in value creation machines.

Indeed, the business design is the set of tools that help entrepreneurs build a value proposition that generates business value, delivered via an innovative business model, to capture value in the long term.

A business model is not a perfect creation. While that is the tool to capture value in the long-run, it also needs to be tweaked and tested over and over again, to make it sustainable. Thus, business design helps enhance the process of business model testing so that a sustainable business model can be built more efficiently.

In the current marketplace, dominated by digital innovation and new models, understanding business design can be the difference between building up a successful company.

Understanding the innovation circles

One of the prevailing methodologies to business design and innovation is IDEO’s approach, based on three primary circles:

Desirability, which is primarily about people and understanding their deep desire for a product or service
Feasibility is about the functionality of a product or service and whether it can deliver on its value proposition
And viability, primary focused on the business side and whether it makes sense from the sustainability of the business

These circles’ aim is to test and prioritize the proper questions to build a sustainable business model.

How does a business design process work?

A business design process wants to translate assumptions about how a business should be in a business model prototype, that can be tested, and iterated in the marketplace. One of the key elements of a business design process is the ability to isolate the assumptions that might make a business model thick in the marketplace. So that those assumptions can be tested and iterated.

What does a business designer do?

As pointed out on IDEO:

Business designers take juicy, creative, human-centered innovation and make it succeed out there in the real world. We use strategy, analysis, and financial modeling as generative design tools, and help organizations turn their biggest, wildest ideas into businesses with long-term viability.

In short, a business designer is a strategist, analyst and financial analyst able to turn insights in business models that turn out viable in the long-term

In a job description as a business designer, IDEO explains:

As a Business Designer, you will be ensuring that the viability of new concepts are thoroughly considered. In this capacity, you’ll work with the team to understand the client context, collect and interpret relevant data, develop insights, explore and define growth opportunities, define strategy, create tangible design expressions, communicate the vision, and ultimately help our clients get new offers to market.

Other resources to design your business: