I think I'm in a fairly rare case of being a designer while also being involved in management. That said, the main reason for this is because I'm a co-founder, not because I rose up from the position of just being a designer.

The other day, I read the following note and found it very interesting, so I'll summarize my thoughts as well.

Are designers a profit center that generates revenue, or a cost center that doesn't contribute to revenue?

In my personal opinion, they are a cost center. Based on the nature of design work, design cannot stand alone and is essentially work that is ancillary to products, marketing, sales, and so on.

This includes product design itself, banner design, design for materials/whitepapers, landing page design, etc.

It's important for designers themselves to have the mindset of creating their own work. However, realistically, that work also involves other functional development work and marketing work. And often the resources to execute those are not available internally (or there are higher priority tasks).

When that's the case, it's certainly powerful if the designer can execute the other areas as well with their remaining resources. This would be a state where the designer is the core while also extending into other areas.

To reach the level of a designer described in the note as being able to "serve as a starting point for creating value and expanding profits", this means the designer has stepped considerably into the PdM and marketer realms beyond just being a designer.

At that point, they are no longer just a designer, but rather a PdM who can do design or a marketer who can do design. Personally, I think these types of personnel are extremely valuable and highly valued.

On the other hand, it's not that people specializing solely in design are bad. Professionals who are completely dedicated to design are also a powerful workforce (of course, they need to hone their skills more than hybrid designers).

While they are a cost center, they are a "necessary" cost, and with their abilities, they have the potential to multiply the quality of the outputs from other areas many times over.

However, having too many designers is seen from a management perspective as a failure to optimize resources, so the minimum number is always demanded. But if design work is swamped, then of course the balance should be reconsidered by adding more.

It may be difficult for general management to grasp this balance, so it would be good to have a CDO or CXO in design who can communicate with management.