Hot Products

Apple's PowerBook computer. Gillette's Sensor razor. Reebok's Pump sneaker. Motorola's MicroTac cellular phone. Chrysler's LH cars. IBM's ThinkPad notebook computer. Different products, different markets, yet they're all wild commercial successes with one thing in common: smart industrial design. Leveraging the power of design is one of the hottest strategic games being played today. A handful of smart companies are making industrial design one of their core competencies and are using it to drive their entire product-development process, sharply increasing their chances of generating hit products--the kind of billion-dollar winners that make companies excel.

The Sensor, Pump, MicroTac, and the LHs are all on their way to becoming billion-dollar sellers. PowerBook and ThinkPad are already there. Like the Taurus, which in the 1980s lifted Ford Motor Co. out of the doldrums, these design-driven products are transcending the traditional norms of market success. Products such as My First Sony--a traditional boom box redesigned with bright colors and rounded shapes that appeal to preschoolers--define whole new categories.