#72 | Jan-Erik Baars | Why design is business-critical.

In EP72, we are talking with Jan-Erik Baars Currently, Jan-Erik is head of the CAS in Design Management at the University of Applied Science in Lucerne, Switzerland. He also does research on the aspects of organizational maturity, design leadership and customer-centricity. As a result, he created the Customer Centricity Score (CCS) and is the author of the book “Leading Design”, a hand and brain book to develop design-led organizations. He is recognised as one of the leading experts in design management and led the Bachelor Program in Design Management in Lucerne from 2011 to 2019. He also lectures at universities in Germany and the Netherlands. In the episode, we talk about how the future of mysticism relies on the ability to design and create many companies onto the track after a certain time to assist to focus too much on the business administration of existing processes rather than creating new ones. In the episode, we jump into: What are some of the mistakes design leaders are doing and what would recommend them to do? Why are many organisations “losing the ability to design/create” and why is the future relying on that? How to help businesses succeed through creativity and design. What are the key challenges for people to communicate the “value of design” with business stakeholders? How designers should be integrated into an organisation to be most effective? And many more! Thanks a lot for your time and your learning Jan! **** The Guest Jan-Erik Baars heads the CAS in Design Management at the University of Applied Science (HSLU) in Lucerne, Switzerland, and does research in the field of design management and customer-centricity. Furthermore, he is a member of the board at Vetica AG, a Swiss design agency, and co-owner of Customer Metrics AG, a Swiss-based service agency. He is a recognized expert in design management and the author of many publications in this field. He lives in Germany, close to the Dutch border.