Designing for Change : How service designers orchestrate business transformation at scale

This article explores how service design can respond to one of the most persistent business challenges of our time: the high failure rate of transformation efforts. One of the biggest challenges that service designers face in transformation work is legitimacy – how do you influence change when you don’t control the levers of power? Research from AIM Business School suggests that up to 70 percent of transformation efforts fail to achieve their intended outcomes (AIM, 2023). While organisations often invest heavily in strategy and delivery, many overlook the human dynamics that make change stick – especially the challenge of influence across silos, functions and power structures. By shifting our perspective, service designers can unlock a more systemic, relational approach to enabling lasting impact.