Profit is the lifeblood of a business. This isn’t exactly news—for a business to succeed, it must make a profit out of its income from providing goods and/or services to customers.

A company must make sure that the products they offer are designed in such a way that they have a competitive stance in the market and will be able to secure a consumer base, therefore ensuring income and driving profits up. 

But in trying to reach this goal, an all-too-common problem that occurs is when the business side of a company is at odds with the design side with regards to design philosophy.

Profit is the end goal—the higher the better, of course—and it is in everyone’s best interests to reach that goal. How they get there though is where some discrepancies crop up.

For the most part, it is the job of the business side to ensure financial growth. The executives, the marketing officers, the sales advisors, their focus lies heavily on meeting targets and quotas. This sales-driven approach is understandable—after all, gaining a profit is the point. However, this can result in placing too much emphasis solely on the numbers: revenue, costs, margins, returns, etc. This approach too often delegates design merely as a means to achieve these numbers, ignoring the more “human” aspects of product design like user satisfaction and convenience in favor of processes that will “fit the budget” or “hit the quota.” This seeming lack of pathos is a familiar cause of frustration for designers, causing a rift between the two parties.

On the other side of the coin, many designers become designers because they want to create; they want to use their artistry and ideas to serve a purpose, they want to find innovative ways to offer solutions to problems, they want to channel their passion and inspiration into providing opportunities. Design is all about placing the value on art and its intentions. But this approach can often be overlooked in a business for many practical reasons. A design could be great in concept, but difficult to execute. It could be over-designed with too many features, and would not be feasible in application. Sometimes a product could even be created just for the sake of creativity, but with no real market in mind, and therefore no profit.

This great rift in approach is detrimental to a company’s growth, and doesn’t do any favors to overall profit. So how do you reconcile the differences?

Peter Drucker once said, “Profit for a company is like oxygen for a person. If you don’t have enough of it, you’re out of the game. But if you think your life is about breathing, you’re really missing something.”

There is no question that final earnings should be a big factor in the design process, but making it the only focus is counterproductive. To keep a business successfully growing, finding a balance between business and design is vital—using smart design approaches with profit in mind is key.

To find this balance, cooperation is paramount—the company must build a strong collaboration between the design and business sides. It is important to establish a design system that is market-driven—meaning the focus is the product’s value to the users. Good product design should serve a purpose and should find its worth in meeting the user’s needs. When the user’s needs are fulfilled, the more they will avail of the product, and the more profit the company ultimately gains.

It is essential to have marketing strategies be closely in line with product design. Streamlining this process, with both marketing and design on the same page, results in a product with a clearer target market. A product created with its intended users and customers in mind makes for easier and more effective marketing campaigns and better sales overall.

It can also be beneficial for a company to take this further and find niche markets and design accordingly. Products that are made for niche markets, i.e. products that solve specific problems or cater to specific needs, means the product will be filling a spot in the market that very few have attended to, and if the market is large enough, can guarantee very good profits.

Smart design also incorporates optimization for production. While it is a requisite to put value on artistry, design must also be aware of manufacturing costs and similar factors. There will always be limitations to how far a design can go, and thoughtful design puts this into consideration and turns it into strengths. Designing with profit in mind ensures a product that has great value for both consumer and manufacturer.

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Illustration / Designer: Joan Aguila
Campaign Strategist: Maria Margaret Cantos
Writer: Chris Ignacio