Design for Design as an enterprise operating system

The challenge

For more than five decades, the organization had built its global reputation through engineering excellence and market-leading hardware innovation. But the marketplace was changing.

Digital technologies, connected products and rapidly evolving consumer expectations were fundamentally redefining what people expected from consumer electronics. Competitive advantage could no longer be created through hardware and technology alone. Increasingly, value was being created through the complete experience surrounding the product, physical, digital and human.

This was not simply a matter of introducing new design methods. Multiple design, engineering, software, research and innovation functions needed to operate as part of a connected system, while retaining the technical excellence that had made the company successful.

The challenge became a fundamental organizational question: how could the company integrate hardware, software, design and innovation into a shared operating model capable of delivering more holistic, user-centered experiences at the speed required by a rapidly evolving marketplace?

The approach

peergroup worked across the organization to understand how products and experiences moved from initial opportunity and research through design, engineering, software development, validation and eventual delivery, examining the existing process architecture, organizational structures, workflows, methodologies, tools, capabilities, resources and governance across multiple functions.

Rather than optimizing each discipline independently, peergroup focused on the connections between them. A comprehensive new operating model was co-created, developed and implemented to bring previously fragmented design and innovation activities into a more integrated system: an integrated process architecture connecting hardware and software development; shared workflows across design, engineering, research and innovation; common methodologies and tools; clearer roles, responsibilities and decision rights; governance supporting multidisciplinary development; user-centered research throughout the development process; iterative concept development and validation; and mechanisms for continually learning and improving the system.

User centricity was embedded throughout, from initial research and opportunity identification through concept development, prototyping and final validation. Technology remained a critical source of competitive advantage, but rather than asking only "what can this technology do?", teams were increasingly equipped to ask "what meaningful experience should we create, and how can technology enable it?"

The outcomes

The new operating model consolidated the workflows of more than 100 professionals across five different functions, creating a shared system for developing integrated products and experiences.

Previously distinct teams gained a common language, shared methodologies and a clearer understanding of how their respective capabilities contributed to the complete development journey. Design, engineering, software, research and innovation could increasingly operate as interconnected components of the same system rather than sequential or isolated functions.

The result was an organization better equipped to develop and deliver market-leading technologies and experiences more effectively, efficiently and at greater speed, while responding to rapidly changing consumer expectations and competitive pressures.

The value created

PEOPLE: Aligned more than 100 professionals across five functions around a shared language, methodologies and ways of working, strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration and understanding of how each discipline contributes to the complete user experience.

ORGANIZATION: Established an integrated operating model connecting hardware, software, design, research and innovation through common processes, workflows, tools, resources and governance.

PROFIT & PERFORMANCE: Created a more effective and efficient product-development system designed to reduce organizational friction, accelerate development and strengthen the company's ability to bring competitive, user-centered technologies and experiences to market.

The mindset shifted