ROI of UX: Why CFOs and CEOs need to prioritise design

New Delhi: Design has long been considered the field of creative teams - an aesthetic layer applied after the core business decisions are made. However, in our current digital-first economy, that perception is not just outdated, it's expensive. User experience (UX) is no longer a nice-to-have. It's measurable, strategic mastery with a direct correlation to profitability, retention, and expansion. And yet, CFOs and CEOs across the world continue to underestimate it, typically because its advantages are viewed as ethereal. The fact, though, is considerably more tangible.

A McKinsey report said that companies that spend on design beat the industry average by as much as two to one in revenue and shareholder return. The same study revealed that the top design performers increased their revenues and total returns to shareholders at nearly double the rate of their counterparts. These aren’t marginal gains. They are bottom-line results that should command C-suite attention.

Design-led companies like Apple, Airbnb, and Shopify aren’t winning just because they build good products - they win because they make it easy for customers to understand, use, and love those products. That’s the role of UX. Whether it’s reducing the number of steps to complete a task, designing for accessibility, or aligning product interfaces with cognitive behaviour, great UX reduces friction. And friction, in digital terms, is expensive. Forrester reports that every dollar invested in UX brings $100 in return, a staggering ROI that rivals or even exceeds many traditional capital investments.

There’s also an increasing cost for not investing in UX. In the SaaS world, for example, churn is one of the greatest dangers to sustained success. Poor onboarding experiences, confusing interfaces, or a lack of feedback loops can quietly bleed customers. Even when the underlying functionality of a product is solid, a bad user experience creates doubt and discontentment. The same goes for industries like banking, healthcare, or education, where digital interfaces are now often the primary point of contact. A single poorly designed form or workflow can result in thousands of lost transactions, even worse, an impact on brand credibility.

CEOs and CFOs have historically tended to use marketing and sales metrics to inform investment decisions. But in digitally native or digitally transforming businesses, UX sits upstream of those metrics. Good design not only optimises conversion but also influences user acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, support tickets, onboarding, and trust building. And since it's a company-wide life cycle, they gain benefits over time.

This becomes even more critical as industries embrace AI, automation, and personalisation. The complexity of these systems demands clear, human-centred interfaces. If a customer doesn’t trust or understand how an AI feature works, they’ll abandon it, regardless of its underlying power. UX design acts as the bridge between technological innovation and actual adoption. In this sense, it’s not just a design problem. It's a business imperative.

It’s also worth noting that UX is no longer an isolated function. The best design outcomes emerge when it’s treated as a collaborative discipline, where design, product, engineering, and business teams share ownership of user outcomes. This integrated approach is what separates companies that merely have designers from those that are truly design-led. And leadership plays a central role in enabling that integration.

For CFOs evaluating where to allocate budgets, or CEOs mapping out next-stage growth, the question should no longer be if design deserves a seat at the table, but how early it’s brought in. The metrics are there. The case studies are plenty. The competitive edge is real. What’s missing, often, is executive buy-in.

Treating UX as a strategic investment rather than an operational cost doesn’t just lead to better products—it creates better businesses.