Business schools and companies have similar challenges. HR and higher education both have to work cross-departmentally and work more and more in a globalised, competitive marketplace and both are required to produce the person best capable of meeting the requirements of the job or market as a whole. With these common factors between us, lessons can be learned from inculcating Service Design Thinking into our management and teaching environments to provide greater value and better customer focus to bridge the potential skills gap between higher education output and future business needs.