Product Design

Design isn't just about "creatives" making things look "pretty", it plays a critical role in product development. Good design:

• Increases feature adoption

• Increases brand affinity

• Decreases new product time to market

• Validates product market fit - decreasing initial investment

• Helps secure investment from venture capitalists

Accomplished designers don't step in the shoes of their customer, they live the entire experience with them. Successful design is more than creating mockups, it is a process akin to project management, it is about leading multiple internal & external stakeholders to a solution that solves a customer pain point.

If your a product focused business and don't have strong design leadership, perhaps a Chief Design Officer, your business risks failure (in your product and brand adoption).

Not willing to make the investment in people and infrastructure - Create analytics dashboards to triage issues. 
Most SMB or startup companies that are in growth mode don’t worry about making and planning for your future growth/scale is becoming more paramount (don’t fumble through growth)

Design has been manically focused on the tech sector, and for good reason, but this focus will spread to other industries namely healthcare & the government sector; who are begging for innovation. In addition, with the rise of XR, designers attention are shifting from mostly visual design into more immersive design experiences which capture all of the customers senses (sound, touch, even taste perhaps)?

Speaking of emerging technology, why wouldn't Design be impacted? Designers are going to get a lot of assistance from AI. NLPs, machine learning, and deep learning will help designers build better customer experiences; such as, creating human interactions with chat bots and voice assistants. The key to using these AI technologies will be for designers to help feel more naturally "human". Also, AI will bring new design tools to bear, assisting designers by taking a lot of the labor intensive tasks in design, such as content creation, placement, visual design, and allowing them to become a "refiner" and a big picture thinker. Will design be cannibalized by emerging tech? Absolutely not!