What does it take to be design driven?

We are very used to hear a lot about “design driven” companies. Are they really design driven or they have nicely designed products and services? I believe there is a difference between being a design driven company and offering beautifully designed products and services. From my perspective, a design driven company is an organization which uses design thinking in its end to end value chain for innovation, progress and crossing the chasm.

I start to think about this when I see SAP’ s service “build” (https://www.build.me/how-it-works) which helps organizations to make prototypes of their ideas. Basically, it is a practical tool enabling easy use of design thinking principles to turn ideas into reality through an iterative process with mitigated risks.

It is very common to see products, services and internal improvements are being introduced according to past experiences of professionals, political agendas and/or with some kind of internal and external data. It is very common to skip iterative design process, mock ups, feedback and so on. Success of the solution highly depends on the experience of employees, their ability to analyze data and how good they play dice roulette.

And what about the price to be paid? A big waste of time and loss of many "M" s like money, market, motivation and etc.