當今社會，科技與全球化使得顛覆性創新發生得比以往任何時代都要快。為了保持優勢地位，那些聰明的企業紛紛從設計入手，以更好地聯系客戶，并找到自己的競爭優勢。

在本文中，我們就來說說各行各業的25家通過設計致勝的公司。其中既有蘋果這樣的老牌設計之王，也有Zalando這種中國讀者不太熟悉的公司。

當愛彼迎（Airbnb）的幾位創始人講起公司的創業故事時，他們經常提到2009年的那個時刻。當時創業孵化器Y Combinator的負責人保羅·格拉漢姆給了他們四句話的重要建議。

當時，愛彼迎的注冊房東只有不到一千人，創始人布萊恩·切斯基、喬伊·杰比亞和內特·布萊扎茲克蜷縮在硅谷的一隅，試圖靠搗騰數據和改版網站將公司做大。雖然愛彼迎一開始是家貌似很有前途的公司，但它每周的營收只有200美元左右。為了找到問題所在，格拉漢姆要求三個創業人對愛彼迎的用戶進行研究：他們的用戶到底在哪里？

在一篇報道中，《財富》記者利·加拉格爾描述了格拉漢姆聽到愛彼迎最大的客戶基數其實是在紐約之后的反應：“他停了下來，又對三人重復了一遍：‘也就是說，你們現在在加州的山景城，但是你們的用戶在紐約？’三人面面相覷：‘是的。’格拉漢姆對他們說道：‘那你們還在這兒待著干嘛？快到你們的用戶那里去！’”

飛越半個國家去客戶混在一起，這番訓話與硅谷的傳統智慧很不搭調，因為硅谷人歷來相信數據和技術能解決所有問題。不過在采納了格拉漢姆的建議后，愛彼迎確實迎來了關鍵的突破。比如他們發現，幫助房東給他們的房子拍些高大上的照片，是很能招徠住客的。

最近十年，“用戶體驗”已經成了一個被說濫了的詞。但它的基礎理念，也就是同理心的力量，卻也變得前所未有地強大。

這至少有兩個原因：首先是現代化全球化數字化的偉力正在打破一切傳統壁壘。大公司無法再依賴強大的產能、供應鏈和銷售網絡保護他們的優勢地位不受競爭對手挑戰。中國等新興經濟體的崛起以及大數據、物聯網、平臺經濟、人工智能等新興技術的發展，也使得大企業傳統的后端防御機制漸漸無法招架。其次是復雜性的原因。然而設計卻可以在這個紛繁復雜的超互聯世界中為我們帶來某種秩序與和諧。

在這種新常態下，明智的企業領導者們越來越認同設計是決定成敗的一個關鍵因素。好的設計可以讓你運用自己理解力取悅顧客和用戶，并且真正與他們建立聯系。

設計可以在紛繁復雜的超互聯世界中為我們帶來某種秩序與和諧。

近年來，各行各業都掀起了一場“設計運動”。“財富500強”企業紛紛高薪聘請首席設計官并投巨資建立設計中心和創新中心。各類專業服務機構也不甘人后。2013年，埃森哲收購了知名設計公司Fjord，而普華永道則重金吃下了數字創新咨詢公司BGT。2015年，麥肯錫公司收購了硅谷設計公司Lunar，同年10月，印度軟件巨頭威普羅收購了設計公司Cooper，這也是繼其2015年收購Designit后第二次收購設計公司。同時，不少頂級商學院和設計學家也紛紛開設跨學科課程，幫助MBA們像設計師一樣思考，或是讓設計師們像MBA一樣想問題。

在今天的“最佳設計企業”專題中，《財富》精心挑選了25家致力于通過設計獲得競爭優勢的公司。為了鑒定他們的設計水平，《財富》也在設計界進行了一番調查，訪問了多名高管，并且搜尋了許多證據證明這些企業在設計方面的投入。本文的結果在科學上并不嚴謹（畢竟設計這東西本身是很難量化的），而且它也并非一份充分完整的名單（現在將賭注押在設計上的企業太多了，光靠一期雜志顯然報導不完）。不過本文提到的企業都走在產品設計領域的前沿，且一心致力于打造更智能、更體貼的產品和體驗。

說到設計和“不同凡想”的偉力，沒有哪家公司比蘋果更有發言權了。雖說近幾年也有人提出，蘋果的設計魔力是不是有些消退了，但作為全球最有價值公司的蘋果依然在不斷推動創新設計的邊界。除了蘋果之外，包括Alphabet、亞馬遜、Nike在內的很多領先企業的成功，也離不開對設計的精益求精。“設計思維”原本是IDEO公司創始人大衛·凱利2003年生造的一個詞，但現在，它已經成了以用戶中心型思維構建產品和服務的同義詞。

當然，對于設計和“設計思維”的突然大熱，持反對意見的也不乏人在。比如在2017年紐約的一場設計大會上，Pentagram公司的合伙人娜塔莎·詹就做了一場題為“設計思維是狗屎”的演講，從而引發了一場激烈爭論。她的主要觀點是，設計從業者往往執著于標新立異，而忽視了自己的作品本身是否是一個不好的設計。科技設計師加迪·阿米特曾從事Fitbit手環和Lytro相機的設計，他表示，科技公司對“設計思維”的執迷會浪費掉大量時間，而且也已無法適應現代產品周期的驚人變革速度。

真理越辯越明，這樣的爭論是應該有的。2018年3月，《財富》將攜手《時代周刊》和英國知名設計雜志《墻紙》（Wallpaper），在新加坡的“腦力風暴設計大會”上繼續探討這個問題。

不過有一件事是明顯的：有了好的設計，生意幾乎總是能做得更好。

下面便是2018年的“最佳設計企業”名單：

Technology and globalization are leading to more and faster disruption than ever. To stay ahead, smart companies are turning to design to better connect with customers and find their competitive advantage.

Here, we feature 25 companies from—Apple to Zalando—in a range of industries that are getting design right.

When Airbnb’s founders tell their origin story, they often hark back to the moment in 2009 when Paul Graham, head of startup incubator Y Combinator, gave them four crucial words of advice.

At the time, Airbnb had fewer than a thousand registered hosts. Founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk were hunkered down in Silicon Valley, scrambling to scale the business by poring over data and revamping the website. After a promising start, revenue had flatlined at $200 per week. To figure out what wasn’t working, Graham pressed the trio for information about Airbnb’s users. Where were they, exactly?

In The Airbnb Story, Fortune’s Leigh Gallagher recounts Graham’s reaction upon learning that the largest concentration of them resided in New York City: “[He] paused and repeated back to them what they had just told him: ‘So, you’re in Mountain View, and your users are in New York?’ he asked. They looked at each other, then back at him. ‘Yeah,’ they said. ‘What are you still doing here?’ Graham said to them. ‘Go to your users.’?”

That exhortation—to fly across the country and hang out with customers—defied a fundamental tenet of Silicon Valley wisdom: that data and technology are the solution to every problem. And yet, for Airbnb, heeding Graham’s advice led to key breakthroughs. Among them: Helping hosts produce better photos of their properties would boost business. (For more on Airbnb and design, see Gallagher’s Q&A with Gebbia.)

A decade on, “user experience” is among the tech industry’s most overused buzz phrases. But the underlying idea—that there is power in empathy—has never been more profound.

That’s true for at least two reasons: One is that the great forces of the modern age, globalization and digitization, are removing traditional barriers to entry. Large firms can no longer rely on great manufacturing capacity, a superior supply chain, and established distribution networks to defend their market position from challengers. The rise of China and other emerging economies, combined with newfangled technological developments like big data, the Internet of things, platform economies, A.I., and automation are combining to flatten and commodify traditional back-end defenses. A second reason is complexity. Design can help bring order and coherence to the chaos of our hyper-connected world.

In this new landscape, smart corporate leaders are embracing the idea that design—channeling insight to delight and truly connect with customers and users—can be a crucial differentiator.

Design can help bring coherence to the chaos of our hyper-connected world.

The result is a major design moment. Fortune 500 companies are hiring chief design officers and investing heavily in design centers and innovation centers. Professional services firms, too, have joined the fray. In 2013, Accenture acquired Fjord, a leading design firm, while PwC snapped up BGT, a digital creative consultancy. In 2015, McKinsey & Co. purchased Lunar, a Silicon Valley–based design firm. In October, Indian software giant Wipro acquired design agency Cooper, adding to its 2015 purchase of Designit. Meanwhile a host of top business and design schools have introduced interdisciplinary programs to help MBAs think more like designers and vice versa.

In the “Business by Design” package, Fortune highlights some two dozen companies that have turned a commitment to design into a competitive advantage. To identify them, Fortune surveyed the design community, grilled executives, and searched for evidence of true corporate commitment. The result is not a completely scientific list. (Design, for the most part, is not quantitative.) And it’s not a truly comprehensive list. (Too many companies are betting on design these days to include in one issue of the magazine.) But all of the companies that made the cut are at the forefront of the movement to create smarter, more thoughtful products and experiences.

No company tops Apple (AAPL, +0.03%) for demonstrating the strategic power of great design and learning to “think different.” While there is a raging debate about whether or not Apple has lost some of its design mojo in recent years, as the story “Has Apple Lost Its Design Mojo” explores, the world’s most valuable company continues to push boundaries. Meanwhile, a host of other leading companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, and Nike, have achieved success by expanding design capabilities. The phrase “design thinking,” coined back in 2003 by IDEO cofounder David Kelley, has become synonymous with taking a user-centric approach to creating products and services.

The sudden enthusiasm for design and design thinking has its detractors. Pentagram partner Natasha Jen sparked a lively debate at a New York design conference early in 2017 with a presentation titled “Design Thinking Is Bullshit.” Her main complaint: that practitioners too often neglect to call out bad design. Gadi Amit, a technology designer who has worked on Fitbit trackers and the Lytro camera, frets that design thinking’s obsession with empathy leads to wasted time and is out of step with the breakneck pace of modern product cycles.

It’s a debate worth having. And one that Fortune will continue this March in Singapore, in collaboration with colleagues at Time and Wallpaper*, at a new conference we’re launching called Brainstorm Design.

One thing is clear, though: Business is almost always better by design. —C.C.

See our full 2018 Business by Design list below.

蘋果的“設計魔力”消失了嗎？

整整一代的無與倫比的產品，使蘋果成了世界上最有價值的公司。不過現在也有不少果粉質疑后喬布斯時代的蘋果還剩下幾分設計功底。其實蘋果的設計水平依然是業界頂尖的，你可點此了解更多。

Has Apple Lost Its Design Mojo?

A generation of peerless products made Apple the world’s most valuable company. Now some in the i-universe are questioning if the magic—in the post–Steve Jobs era—is still there. Don’t believe the naysayers. Read more.

什么樣的吹風機最酷？一要有強大的研發，二要有高度的專注

英國工業設計師詹姆斯·戴森的神奇之處，就在于他將顛覆性的創新技術與“蘋果流”的極簡主義融為一體，將吸塵器、電風扇、吹風機這種無趣的家用產品變成了令無數人心儀的東西——比如上圖中的戴森超聲波吹風機。它的研發耗時足足4年，光原型機就設計了600多個。它內置的數字馬達的重量只有傳統吹風機的一半，速度卻是傳統吹風機的八倍。

如此的嚴謹對戴森來說并非孤例。戴森是英國機器人和人工智能領域的最大投資者。隨著公司的工程師和科學家越來越多（到2020年或將翻一番，達到6000人），2017年9月，戴森公司還成立了一所內部大學——戴森工程技術學院。戴森公司還計劃在2020年前投資26億美元用于研發電池動力汽車。

When is a hair dryer cool? When it’s the product of powerful R&D and laser-like focus

British industrial designer James Dyson has spent his career marrying disruptive technology with an Apple-esque minimalism to transform drab everyday appliances such as vacuum cleaners, fans, and hair dryers into products with cult followings. Case in point: the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer pictured above. Developed over four years and through 600 prototypes, it features a digital motor half the weight and eight times the speed of a traditional dryer.

Such rigor is no anomaly. Dyson is the U.K.’s biggest investor in robotics and artificial intelligence research. In September, the company launched the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, a university within its office grounds, to feed its growing headcount of engineers and scientists, which Dyson predicts will double to 6,000 by 2020. Dyson also plans to invest $2.6 billion into developing battery-operated vehicles in the same time frame. —D.Y.

用心去做電子消費產品和軟件

成熟的谷歌終于有了自己的審美了。像蘋果、雅虎、亞馬遜等很多科技公司一樣，早期的谷歌在審美上也有過一段不堪回首的經歷。早期的谷歌喜歡的是恣意使用各種顏色、字體和標點符號的“殺馬特”式審美（不信的可以看看1998年的谷歌主頁）。隨著時間的推移，谷歌的大多數競爭對手們也都成熟了，漸漸放棄了那些不上檔次的審美怪癖，風格越來越靠近極簡主義，在顏色搭配上也越來越控制和考究，其中最具代表性的就是那種光滑亮澤、頗具未來主義和德式工藝風的“蘋果范兒”。不過在19歲生日來臨之際，谷歌卻重拾起了它的少年心，將先進的工業設計、軟件設計與奇怪的造型、新材料和明亮的顏色（比如Pixel 2手機的電源鍵）相結合，在這樣一個手機外觀設計千人一面的時代，迸發出了豐富的人的活力——這也提醒了上面那幾家科技巨頭，盡量別把自己搞得太嚴肅了。

三星/Samsung

整體的戰略信念

前幾年，三星還站在法庭上針對蘋果的指控竭力辯駁“你憑什么污人清白”，不過經過幾十年的厚積薄發，三星也終于摘掉了廉價機的帽子。如今的三星是在研發上最舍得下本的科技公司了。它的電視、電話、家電、服務和地產等也都在市面上頗受追捧。

亞馬遜/Amazon

以人為本的資本主義

好設計不僅看審美，更看功能。說到功能性，誰能拼得過“賣一切”的亞馬遜呢？從強大的電商網站，到線下的無現金實體店，再到亞馬遜出品的一系列語音控制設備，亞馬遜對顧客的關注始終是不容忽視的。

華為/Huawei

打造創新基礎

現下，中國的科技巨頭紛紛將眼光瞄準了海外市場，可由于知識產權的原因，很多中國公司也只能是望洋興嘆了。不過華為卻有闖蕩海外的底氣。這家總部位于深圳（可不是“山寨”哦）的設備廠商在軟硬件專利上已經走在了全球前列。

微軟/Microsoft

為99%的人而設計

微軟的界面設計相當杰出，它現代都市感的設計語言和互動化的流暢設計體系都非常值得稱道。但其最杰出的一點，就是它對包容性設計的專注，哪怕是殘疾人也可以一樣使用它的產品。

In search of consumer electronics and software with soul

Google is all grown up. As with many tech companies—Apple, Yahoo, even Amazon—Google’s design language has come a long way since its kaleidoscopic early days, when every color, typeface, and punctuation mark was used with abandon. (Seriously—just look at that 1998 homepage.) Over time, most of Google’s peers matured by shedding their quirks and shades in favor of minimalist forms and a restrained palette, best embodied by the sleek, futuristic, Braun-influenced stylings of Apple. Not Google. In the wake of its 19th birthday, the company, now part of the conglomerate known as Alphabet, has retained the personality of its youth by wedding sophisticated industrial and software design (have you seen Google Home and Android 8.1?) with strange shapes, novel fabrics, and pops of bright color, such as the power button on its new Pixel 2 phone. In a world where today’s angular machines are plastic and glass, black and white, and altogether expressionless, Google’s products burst with the exuberance of, well, humans—a signal to its peers that they shouldn’t take themselves too seriously. —A.N.

Samsung

Holistic, strategic conviction

It wasn’t so long ago that Samsung found itself in a courtroom defending its creativity against Apple. But the company’s decades-long bid to move beyond its reputation as a budget brand has paid off. Today Samsung is tech’s largest spender on R&D. And its TVs, phones, appliances, services, and offices? Covetable. —A.N.

Amazon

Human-centered capitalism

Good Design isn’t limited to aesthetics; it is equally about function. And what could be more functional than the store that sells everything? From its bulletproof website to its cashierless stores to its family of speech-enabled devices, Amazon’s customer focus cannot be ignored. —A.N.

Huawei

Building a base of innovation

When China’s tech giants looked to markets beyond their own shores, it was clear that many wouldn’t be able to make the trip thanks to dubious intellectual-property portfolios. Not Huawei. The Shenzhen (but not shanzhai) gadget maker is a leader in international patents for software and hardware alike. —A.N.

Microsoft

Design for the 99%

There’s much to be said about Microsoft’s whiz-bang interfaces, modern Metro design language, and interactive Fluent Design System. But what sets this titan apart is its emphasis on inclusive design that makes products as accessible to people with disabilities as to those without. —A.N.