In a recent Forbes Agency Council article, Why Design-Led Companies Make Better Decisions and Deliver Better Experiences, ArtVersion’s Principal and Creative Director, Goran Paun, explored how embedding design into business strategy directly improves outcomes—from revenue growth to brand loyalty and team alignment.
The article dives deep into what it means to be truly “design-led,” and why companies that elevate design thinking at the leadership level outperform their competitors on nearly every key metric. Drawing from industry-leading research and over two decades of firsthand agency experience, the piece articulates how strategic design creates not only better products—but stronger companies.
Connecting Design to Business Results
The Forbes article cites compelling findings from organizations such as McKinsey & Company, Forrester, Adobe, and First Round Capital. These reports consistently show that design-centric companies outperform their peers:
- McKinsey’s Business Value of Design study found that design-led companies delivered 32% more revenue and 56% higher total returns to shareholders over five years.
- Forrester and Adobe’s research showed that organizations prioritizing customer experience through design saw 1.7× revenue growth and 1.9× improvement in customer lifetime value.
- First Round Capital revealed that companies with design-focused founders performed over 200% better than those without.
Design maturity is not a buzzword—it’s a business lever.
From Visual Aesthetics to Strategic Infrastructure
In the article, Goran emphasizes that becoming design-led goes far beyond aesthetics or having a good-looking interface. It’s about using design as a decision-making framework across the organization.
“Design, when integrated strategically, creates cohesion between business goals, user needs, and the technologies that power them,” he writes. “It guides not only how something looks, but how it functions, how it communicates, and ultimately how it performs.”
This approach reduces technical debt, lowers acquisition costs, increases retention, and speeds up time-to-market through better prototyping and decision flow. Design becomes the language of clarity—inside and outside the organization.
A Practical Playbook for Becoming Design-Led
The Forbes article outlines a four-step roadmap for companies looking to make design a cornerstone of their operations:
- Audit your current decision-making models and assess design literacy within teams.
- Align leadership by translating design performance into tangible business value using data and KPIs.
- Initiate small pilot programs to integrate design thinking into one product, feature, or team workflow.
- Scale by embedding design principles across departments and creating systems that unify experiences.
At ArtVersion, this mirrors the methodology we apply when working with clients—from Fortune 500 companies to emerging brands. We help teams map the invisible structures that affect usability, decision flow, and engagement—then redesign them from the user’s perspective outward.
The Competitive Edge of Design Leadership
In today’s landscape, where speed, clarity, and trust are the new currency, design is no longer optional—it’s transformative. Brands that lead with design are not just creating better experiences for users; they’re building stronger internal alignment and more sustainable business models.
As Goran concludes in the article:
“The business case for a design-led culture is clear. The only question is whether organizations will act on this opportunity while their competitors are still debating budget allocations.”
Design has always been a differentiator. Now, it’s becoming the engine of innovation and strategic resilience.
Read the full Forbes article here:
Why Design-Led Companies Make Better Decisions and Deliver Better Experiences