Service Design in India, an interview with Anannya Bhowmik

We asked Indian Service Designer Anannya Bhowmik her thoughts about the evolution of Service Design in her country. A big thank you to Anannya for her insights.

Service Design Jobs: What's the state of Service Design in India?

Anannya:

It is budding, and it is going to boast like UX wave within 2-3 years where everyone will be talking, doing " Service Design." Most of the companies, even designers, are not clear about the term "Service Design."

This is my personal opinion: People should start Service design in smaller agencies, where one designer/small team of 2-3 designers are often the one-stop-shop for the team. Also, consulting agencies have that opportunity as well.

What are great opportunities to learn Service Design in India?

NID, the premier design institute of India provides Service Design has a choice of subject in Service Design (not specialized degree).

The Service Design Network gives a lot of free material, but most of the students are not aware of it. There are ebooks available + papers, which is helpful.

If I'm looking for a job opportunity as a service designer, what are the key cities that offer such opportunities in India?

I would recommend you look for jobs in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad. These are the places we received interest to scale up the Service Design Drinks India events on our Instagram page).

What are the leading companies that use Service Design in India?

I would say frog, Thoughtworks, Tata Elxsi, BCG, and Designit. Most of the companies in India are still not hiring designers under the "Service Designer" title. However, these are some companies who have reached out to me, for the service designer profile, they have been doing Service Design work.

What are the local Service Design communities in India?

Currently, there is only one Service Design-oriented meet up present here: it is the Service Design Drinks India. We are working on scaling this community up to other cities. Though there are many meetups for mostly UX Design that can still be interesting for service designers.

If I'm looking for a service design job position what local terms should I use?

As hiring happens in English and our official language is English we don't have a substitute word that we use. So we use the term "Service Designer".

Lastly, do you have some links you recommend for people interested in Service Design in India?

Sure, check out and join us on the Instagram and Linkedin pages of the Service Design Drinks community.