Design Maturity

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From designing physical products to shaping digital interfaces and branding strategies, design encompasses a wide range of disciplines. Whether it’s product design, user or customer experience design, interior architecture, or strategic design, each form of design contributes uniquely to innovation and problem-solving within organizations.

Design integration is strong but not wide

While 54% of organizations have integrated design into their development processes, many still struggle to fully embrace its strategic potential. The impact of design is recognized in areas like brand differentiation, customer satisfaction, and product innovation, but its broader strategic value is often underutilized. However, the new design maturity models have created space and vision for design to grow and evolve.

Design faces resource constraints

Key challenges to increasing design maturity include limited resources, misunderstanding of design, and cultural resistance. In some organizations, design is still viewed as a support function rather than a key business driver. Tight economic situation and companies’ cost-saving measures may pose challenges, with 71% reporting that limited resources are a barrier to maturity growth. It is evident that, due to staff reductions, design activities have been reorganized in some companies, and some have even eliminated the role of design director. 

Increasing recognition of design’s impact

42% of respondents reported that design has a high or very high impact on their company’s bottom line, through brand perception, customer satisfaction, and product innovation. Organizations that have reached higher levels of design maturity view design as a critical driver of business growth and innovation, illustrating the potential for design to shape organizational strategy when fully embraced.