How far does design extend into the enterprise? All the way to the format of packaging a sandwich. How does this effect ROI? Well when your selling more than a million sandwiches a day, every inch of packaging counts and more specifically where the data on that package is placed, means seconds for checkout staff. A design function. Definitely. TESCO in the uk saved more than 500k British pounds after simplifying design and the placement of that product label. As described by Sir Terry Leahy, past CEO of TESCO describes in his book and described here.
Simple examples of the design work being completed by Dove and L’Oreal are great examples and even the advanced R&D design work of Sunstar Butler amongst others show the necessity to push forward on materials and manufacturing capabilities.
And this isn't a new topic, especially in the world of packaging as described and detailed by Smashing Magazine's Packaging Simplicity Article where even the placement of logo can effect the way, end users, in the case of checkout workers, can effect the time it takes to scan customers items. Thus simplicity isn't just for management, or even packaging design, but must begin with the 1st steps of the design, review and release process.
