DrIleanaStigliani

 

Companies around the world are realizing that good design is good business. The increasing awareness of how design can help create value for companies is definitely leading more and more firms, in industries ranging from home appliances to transportation, from food and beverage to consumer electronics, to attempt to use design as a source of competitive advantage. Clever design often makes the difference between the success and failure of innovative entrepreneurial ideas, as it can help firms make not only better products and services, but also better business decisions. However, one-time investments or occasional contracting of design superstars to revamp a product line may produce only ephemeral results. Good design stems from a systematic approach to design. 

Many entrepreneurs, product developers, marketers, and service managers, though, still lack the preparation to fully take advantage of the benefits of design and designers. Research shows that this lack of preparation is among the most common causes for failures in design-business collaborations. This module, therefore, will introduce participants to design thinking and practice, and will provide them with concepts and tools to improve their capacity to manage the collaboration with designers in the development of new products and services.

 

Module Aims and Objectives

 

This module builds on the core “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Design (IE&D)” module of the MBA, of which it represents a deeper and more elaborate version. It aims at providing a deep understanding of how firms can leverage upon design and designers to stimulate innovation and to build competitive advantage, as well as of the managerial challenges they encounter as they do so.