business-design

What Is A Business Designer? Business Design In A Nutshell

Business design enables organizations to deliberately craft a business model to prove sustainability in the marketplace by validating the building blocks of a business model. The business designer can help an organization to build a viable business model by readily testing its riskiest assumptions against the marketplace.

From design thinking to business design

In the world of design thinking, a process of iteration is put in place to seek the 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.

Related: Business Strategy: Definition, Examples, And Case Studies

Related: Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know

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.

Why does business design matter?

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?
design-thinking
Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.
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“>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 into 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.

Business designer salary

business-designer-salary

Source: ZipRecruiter

According to ZipRecruiter a business designer makes on average $65K in the US. According to paysa an IDEO senior business designer makes $118K on average.  

Business designer skills

A business designer has a mix of skills that go from analysis, business modeling, business model innovation, business development, lean methodologies, and combine all those things to build successful businesses that create an impact in the world!

Related Business Concepts

user-experience-design
The term “user experience” was coined by researcher Dr. Donald Norman who said that “no product is an island. A product is more than a product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service – from initial intentions through final reflections, from the first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly.” User experience design is a process that design teams use to create products that are useful and relevant to consumers.
mvc-framework
The MVC framework is a predictable software design pattern separated into three main components and suitable for many programming languages. The goal of the MVC framework is to help structure the code-base and separate application concerns into three components: View, Model, and Controller.
full-stack-development
There are three segments of web development and design. One is dealing with the user interface or what the customer sees. Front End development is responsible for the crucial elements that make up the presentation of the page. The next is Back End, which handles the processes involved in the web page. It deals with information validation, database management, as well as transactions. As businesses continue to grow, the third segment emerged to accommodate their increasing needs and lucrative goals. Building applications from end-to-end is what makes a full stack developer. It is a more versatile role that is considered the Jack of All Trades.
coso-framework
The COSO framework is a means of designing, implementing, and evaluating control within an organization. The COSO framework’s five components are control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring activities. As a fraud risk management tool, businesses can design, implement, and evaluate internal control procedures.
design-sprint
A design sprint is a proven five-day process where critical business questions are answered through speedy design and prototyping, focusing on the end-user. A design sprint starts with a weekly challenge that should finish with a prototype, test at the end, and therefore a lesson learned to be iterated.
agile-project-management
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
business-model
A business model is a framework for finding a systematic way to unlock long-term value for an organization while delivering value to customers and capturing value through monetization strategies. A business model is a holistic framework to understand, design, and test your business assumptions in the marketplace.

design-a-business-model

hook-model
The Hook Model is a framework designed by Nir Eyal, author of the book “Hooked” which consists of four elements: trigger, action, reward, and investment. This is a process of gamification that helps startups create habit-forming products.

Other resources to design your business:

What is Business Design?

Business design enables organizations to deliberately craft a business model to prove sustainability in the marketplace by validating the building blocks of a business model. The business designer can help an organization to build a viable business model by readily testing its riskiest assumptions against the marketplace.

Why design is important for business?

Business design helps entrepreneurs, managers, and executives to craft business prototypes of how their business might look in the marketplace and test their hypotheses quickly. Therefore, helping business people to craft experiments to test those hypotheses. That enables to build a successful business, quickly and cheaply to unlock growth and traction.

What is a business model example?

A business model is a framework for finding a systematic way to unlock long-term value for an organization while delivering value to customers and capturing value through monetization strategies. A business model is a holistic framework to understand, design, and test your business assumptions in the marketplace.
View more on FourWeekMBA

What is b2b business model?

In a B2C model, a business deals with other companies. Examples of B2B include companies like Salesforce and Dropbox, which usually sell to other businesses. The B2B model offers a product or service which is wired toward a smaller set of customers compared to B2B which has different features.

More Resources

Published by

Gennaro Cuofano

Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA which reached over a million business students, executives, and aspiring entrepreneurs in 2020 alone | He is also Head of Business Development for a high-tech startup, which he helped grow at double-digit rate | Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy | Visit The FourWeekMBA BizSchool | Or Get in touch with Gennaro here

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