Design at Scania
Scania is a complex organization that has progressively matured in how it utilizes design across various departments. Different design roles contribute in distinct ways:
- UI and UX Designers focus on improving product usability and meeting immediate delivery needs.
- Journey Leads take a broader view, ensuring that customer experiences align with long-term business objectives.
- Service Designers work at a systemic level, fostering collaboration across functions and integrating customer-centric approaches into strategy and operations.
Design is embedded in many functions today:
- The design Team within IT owns the design system
- Service designers within R&D work future-oriented with eco-system solutions and new ventures.
- Design teams within Sales & Marketing, such as Karin’s function, develop digital services and have played a key role in the overall build of CX capabilities, demonstrating how design can drive value at different levels.
The motivation for incorporating UX is often tied to short-term product delivery, whereas Service Design and Journey Leads are more closely linked to strategic planning and product roadmaps. These differences require leadership to recognize the importance of integrating Service Designers and Journey Leads into higher-level decision-making. UX, by contrast, is more naturally accepted, as its value is widely recognized and embedded in product development workflows.
In Talks with Karin Hedman
Scania’s journey of integrating design into the transformation has been a path filled with challenges and rewarding milestones, especially as Scania embraced digitalization, automation, and electrification, design has become essential for navigating change and prioritizing customer needs. By integrating design into teams, educating leadership, and encouraging designer collaboration, Scania has made design central to its business transformation. This approach has helped the company stay innovative and adapt to rapidly changing market conditions, positioning design as a key enabler of long-term success.
“At Scania, we often talk about being in a transformation. This includes digitalization, global uncertainty, automation, and electrification. Managers are continuously trained in these areas. The organization needs to be able to handle this uncertainty, and we have had service designers working on these issues to help us navigate.”
For Scania embedding design, the key takeaway has been to break down silos, empower designers to take on strategic roles, and ensure they are integrated early into product development and strategic planning. It’s about helping leaders to understand the impact designers can have on a more collaborative, innovative, and customer-focused organization.
“It was clear that to survive and thrive, Scania needed to evolve. Design became an essential part of our digitalization and automation strategy. It wasn’t just about how things looked, but how we could use design to solve big challenges.”
1. Proving the Value of Design
Embracing Design as a Strategic Enabler of Transformation
The transport industry is undergoing a large transformation within three main areas of digitalization, electrification and automation. At Scania, managers are continuously trained in these areas, being equipped to operate in a changing business environment .Managers are continuously trained in these areas. The organization needs to be able to handle this uncertainty, and we have had service designers working on these issues to help us navigate. There is a growing need within Scania to adopt more customer-centred ways of working. CX methods have been introduced to support this shift, and Service Designers have played a key role in developing and implementing these methodologies.
Bringing Designers into Strategic Conversations
For Service Designers to be effective, leadership must support their ability to work across functions. It is not about designers forcing their way into different areas but about leadership enabling cross-functional collaboration. If Service Designers are not integrated into strategic planning, they risk working in isolation, limiting their ability to drive broader change.
Building Leadership Understanding of Design’s Strategic Value
As Scania continued its journey, Karin realized that leadership buy-in was key to success.
“It wasn’t enough to just hire designers; we needed leadership to understand the value they brought.”
While UX is well understood, the role of Service Design is often questioned. However, when large research projects have been conducted, including persona development and customer journey mapping, leaders within Scania have seen the collaborative value that Service Design brings. Service Designers facilitate teamwork and have contributed to a more open and cooperative environment within cross-functional teams.
The ability of Service Designers to visualize structures and dependencies has improved cross-functional collaboration and highlighted the need for cooperation between departments. Their work has led to a better understanding of how different functions are interconnected, ultimately fostering a more effective and coordinated working environment. By involving the Service designer in the same issues that leaders are dealing with, Scania’s leaders recognized that design was not just about execution but also about shaping strategy and guiding transformation.
“If you bring in a Service Designer, leadership must enable them to work broadly.The value of Service Designers comes when they are allowed to zoom out and work more holistically, bringing different teams together and creating a mutual understanding of the problem that needs to be solved in cooperation between many disciplines. As a leader, it’s about opening doors and explaining why it’s necessary to work this way.”
2. Organizational Structure and Design Roles
Decentralizing Design to Maximize Impact
Historically, UX and UI roles have been part of the Information Technology family, while Service Design and Journey Leads have been within Business Development. Efforts are underway to bring all design roles together under a new Design family within Business Development.
At Scania, role definitions for all positions are being established within a global HR system. UX was included with some elements of Service Design, but Service Design as a distinct role was not fully incorporated. This has contributed to ongoing uncertainty about the role of Service Design within the organization.
The challenge remains in ensuring that designers are present in broader strategic discussions. More representation is needed in these areas to strengthen understanding and enable better integration of design practices at all levels of the organization.
3. Possibilities for Personal Growth
Creating Clear Career Paths for Designers
Career paths for designers at Scania are evolving, with more opportunities for strategic roles. Some designers move into leadership positions, while others prefer to remain in specialized design roles. However, shifting from UX to broader Service Design or Journey Leadership roles can be challenging, as it requires transitioning from short-term, product-focused work to long-term strategic thinking.
Many designers have strong facilitation and communication skills, which open opportunities to contribute to collaboration and alignment within the organization. However, balancing depth of expertise with the ability to take a broader perspective remains a challenge.
One recurring challenge is the terminology around design roles. The term “Service Design” is well understood within certain areas, but in other parts of the organization, it is less clear. As a result, different departments have adapted job titles to better fit their context, such as “UX Engineer” in R&D or “Smart Vehicle Function Designer.” This variation reflects the ongoing need for greater clarity and alignment regarding design roles across the organization.
