What a great way to start the year! China Bridge’s service design philosophy has been featured in the January 2025 issue of Business Review, a publication with exclusive copyright licensing from MIT Sloan.
As Professor Xin Rong highlighted in her opening editorial, Looking Ahead to 2025:
“In this issue, we explore emerging business trends to help organizations navigate change and seize new opportunities. In The Next Big Opportunity: Emotional Value in Services, service design expert Cathy Huang introduces ten ways to design emotional value and inspire customers to willingly pay for it.”
This feature not only recognizes China Bridge’s years of dedication to the industry but also reflects the growing influence of service design in business management.
01 | Service Design + Business Management: A Future Trend
Cathy Huang, Founder of China Bridge, shared her thoughts on this milestone:
“Being featured in Business Review is more than recognition of China Bridge’s philosophy. It demonstrates how service design is becoming increasingly integrated into business management and emerging as a powerful driver of innovation. I have always been committed to bringing service design into business management, and this recognition further strengthens my belief in that mission.”
This is not Cathy’s first contribution to the conversation between design and business leadership.
As early as 2006, she brought a designer’s perspective to the business community through her article The Source of Innovation in Chinese Enterprises, published in Fortune magazine.
She subsequently published influential articles including From Creativity to Business and Design Drives Strategy, advancing a forward-thinking idea:
“Design should not only serve as a catalyst for product innovation but also become a core tool for business management and strategy.”
Nearly two decades later, Cathy continues to champion the philosophy of driving business innovation through service design, helping organizations embed service design into their management practices.
From pioneering research to real-world applications, the value of this approach has become increasingly evident.
02 | From Theory to Practice: Advancing the Industry
In 2019, driven by a commitment to bridging industry practice and academic knowledge, Cathy led the China Bridge team in publishing Service Design, a comprehensive guide to service design tools and methodologies aimed at making service design more accessible to businesses.
The book quickly gained widespread recognition, receiving endorsements from leading figures across business, investment, media, and design, including Don Norman, Liang Ning, Tang Weiwei, Qin Shuo, and Liu Run. It has also supported numerous organizations in putting service design into practice.
In recognition of her contribution, Cathy received the prestigious Best Author of the Year award from Huazhang.
Huazhang, an imprint of China Machine Press, is one of China’s leading publishers in business and management. Since its establishment in 1995, it has introduced influential works by renowned thinkers and business leaders, including Peter Drucker, Al Ries and Jack Trout, Kazuo Inamori, John Kotter, Henry Mintzberg, and Zhang Ruimin, among many others.
China Bridge has maintained a long-standing partnership with China Machine Press, collaborating on the ongoing publication of the Service Design book series.
In 2025, the two organizations will collaborate once again on a new publication, The DNA of Great Service: What Makes Service Touch People’s Hearts. Stay tuned!
03 | The Future Is Here: Making Service Design Accessible to All
Being featured in Business Review marks another important milestone in the growing recognition of China Bridge’s service design philosophy.
We believe that service design is more than a tool for improving customer experiences. It is a powerful methodology for driving business innovation and building sustainable competitive advantage.
To make service design more accessible to a wider audience, China Bridge is taking a leading role in coordinating the Global Service Jam in China this year.
For the first time since the nationwide collaboration began in 2020, we will provide online facilitation throughout the event, introducing comprehensive improvements to the participant journey and collaborative process.
This may be a unique opportunity to experience a new level of nationwide collaboration. With Jammers across China ready to create, there has never been a better time to join us!