Talented designers at a CPG company well- respected for its design credentials started leaving because of the amount of time they had to spend styling slideshow packs for the marketing team. Conversely, Spotify’s appeal to top designers is often attributed to its autonomy-with-connectivity culture and to a working environment characterized by diversity, fun, and speed to market. Design already touches many parts of a business: human–machine interactions, AI, behavioral economics, and engineering psychology, not to mention innovation and the development of new business models. While not a new concept, T-shaped hybrid designers, who work across functions while retaining their depth of design savvy, will be the employees most able to have a tangible impact through their work. They will only be able to do so, though, if they have the right tools, capabilities, and infrastructure. That calls for the sort of design software, communication apps, deep data analytics, and prototyping technologies that drive productivity and accelerate design iterations. All of this requires time and investment. We found a strong correlation between successful companies and companies that resisted the temptation to cut spending on research, prototyping, or concept generation at the first sign of trouble. Formal design allocations should be agreed to in partnership with design leaders instead of appearing (as they often do) as line items in the marketing or engineering budgets. The Business Value of Design