These are the most interesting times for Design and business.The potential of Design to contribute positive value to business was acknowledged as early in 1970s when Thomas Watson Jr. of IBM declared that 'Good design is good business'. However, then it sounded more like philosophical musing than an actionable strategy for businesses to adopt.

Since then, it’s been a long journey that Design now is a force to reckon with and organizations across the globe are looking to adopt Design in their processes and systems.

In the last few years, success of organizations like Apple, Samsung, and others, have been attributed to Design. Design consultancies like IDEO, Frog Design, and Fjord have promoted 'Design Thinking' and made design more visible and accessible for companies, governments and society.This has also helped in Design being seen as a problem-solving activity rather than an only styling or decorating activity.Design thinking is the key to competitiveness on the global scene and 21st century will need professionals who not only have a sound analytical skills and professional attitude but also can think creatively and be sensitive to the socio-cultural needs of the immediate environment.Globally, Design is seen as discipline which can create professionals who can think creatively and come up with innovative solutions for industry and society.

This new way of problem solving has to be nurtured early on in the young minds and hence the integration of design in education is increasing. Design is poised to make a huge impact on education and Design focused institutions are a need of hour. Design is valuable across the entire spectrum from school education to higher education to professional education. Design as a problem solving tool for real life problems is also now being integrated in Engineering and Management education.

The responsibility to nurture the right talent in the future professionals rests with the design institutes. It is these design schools that provide the right design talent to industry and prepare design learners for the challenges of tomorrow.Design institutes bring in the focus on human-centric design and use this as a framework to look at the problems with a different perceptive. The learners are prepared to build a deep empathy with people and end-users and understand their problems. Students design solutions by generating multiple ideas, building prototypes and sharing the design solution with people.

With the new initiatives like Start-up India, Make in India, Digital India, and Smart Cities, Design has an important role to play in the holistic development of India as a country

In India, since the late nineties with the economy opening up and the globalisation changing the dynamics of Indian economy Design also started gaining importance. At this point private players started entering the system and a host of Institutions were set up.

Currently, India has few reputed institutions that are providing the quality design education. There are public as well as private design schools that have encouraged the growth of design education in India. With such dedicated design schools, the quality of education has gone up.

Design schools have different specialisations of designs like graphic design, automotive design, fashion design, furniture design, industrial design, exhibition design, new media design, to name a few. Also, there are some design schools in India who aim to make students equally conversant in the business and design with their MBA in Design Management programmes.

Design also plays an important role in supporting entrepreneurship and start-up ecosystem. Design focussed accelerators enable start-ups to achieve design led innovation and create value through design. With the new initiatives like Start-up India, Make in India, Digital India, and Smart Cities, Design has an important role to play in the holistic development of India as a country. This is most appropriate time for design as an area of study and as profession. Design focussed institutions play an important role to prepare Designers who are equipped to create better products, services, systems and experiences by emphasizing on user-centred design.

The future of design is very promising and more and more young and bright minds should seek opportunities that expose themselves to various facets of design. One of the most important things is that design is an attitude and a mind-set that has to be nurtured over a period of time. Design thinking and skills evolve organically and hence an early exposure to design is always beneficial. Design institutes in India are contributing to this through various programs and outreach activities and creating an ecosystem to bring benefits of holistic and multi-disciplinary design education to the industry, government and society at large.