‘Good design is good business’

At JPMorganChase, the business value of design in banking products extends beyond aesthetics. Investing in good design helps the firm achieve a competitive edge, foster customer loyalty and drive overall business success.

At the Commercial & Investment Bank’s first Design Summit, design groups in different lines of business came together to discuss the importance and benefits of their work to the future of the bank. In addition to the business value of design, discussion topics included the importance of collaboration in delivering a consistent, user-centered experience for clients and how AI and personalization are driving the firm’s focus on client experience.

Why design matters

In today’s financial services landscape, the quality of a company’s client experience stands as a competitive differentiator that can increase client loyalty and market share—when done well. Some of the biggest technology companies and increasingly financial services firms and fintechs set the standards that users expect for digital client experience, whether it’s for personal or business tasks.

Business value of design

“So often there’s a collection of things that are coming together, that it can be hard to do an attribution model that shows it was design that led the change,” said Alejandra Villagra, Global Head of Digital Innovation and Experience Design. But industry research has substantiated the value of design. Janaki Kumar, Head of Design, Global Banking, discussed two important design studies:

• Design Management Institute’s Design Value Index evaluated design-centric companies to see if they add shareholder value. Design-centric companies were defined as those that have designers at senior leader levels who have a seat at the table in making strategic decisions and have multifunctional teams with UX developers, researchers and content people. Over a 10-year period, the Design Value Index found that when these design teams were engaged early in the process and allowed to understand the problem before they delve into the solution, the company saw 211% more shareholder value than non-design centric organizations
• A McKinsey & Company study, “The Business Value of Design,” quantified the commercial impact of design-led thinking for top-performing companies, finding that they offered 56% higher return to shareholders and 32% higher revenue.

“When we think about business value of design, it’s about making sure we deliver value to customers by putting them at the center of every decision we make throughout the product development lifecycle,” said Erika Kindlund, Global Head of Design for J.P. Morgan Payments. JPMorganChase design teams have demonstrated the business value of design through increased adoption, productivity, efficiencies and savings.

Importance of collaboration

In a firm as large as JPMorganChase, collaboration across design teams supporting the different businesses is important in achieving a unified, client-centric vision. For example, by working together, teams can create value through reuse of design elements, which, in turn, offers clients a consistent user experience.

AI and personalization

AI and automation is expected to help provide personalized experiences for customers. “When we start by giving customers the ability to define their own automation, we’re giving ourselves an onramp to train our models for AI so that in the future, when clients come to the system, they don’t have to bother creating the rule,” said Kindlund.

Benefits to clients

“Good design is good business,” Kumar said. “By putting clients at the center of everything we do, we can help growing companies graduate into more sophisticated financial products. We want to make sure we allow the user to log in and get a personalized experience based on who they are and their needs.”