James Dyson has built a billion-euro company by sticking to a simple principle – designing products that work

INNOVATION MAY be the world economy’s way of climbing out of the mire, but in the midst of the current downturn, you could understand why some people would be reluctant to take any risks. However, rather than discouraging people from branching out and innovating, the recession could prove the perfect opportunity for fledging inventors to get their ideas off the ground.

Few companies have demonstrated this better than Dyson. The company was started in the midst of a recession, and has now grown to a multi-billion-euro business that employs more than 3,000 people worldwide.

The man behind the company, James Dyson (64), has created a name for himself over the years as one of Britain’s most well-known inventors.

The original version of the Dyson vacuum cleaner was the product of more than 5,000 prototypes, and several years of hard work before its inventor was happy with the finished product. The company itself was established in 1992.

Since then, the product line has been improved and expanded, and now includes Dyson’s latest creation, the Dyson Ball.

But James Dyson hasn’t stuck to the traditional way of business. He moved from the cyclone vacuum cleaner to a faster hand dryer. He’s also turned his hand to bladeless fans and heaters, with the Dyson Hot.

They all have one thing in common: they fix a problem that James Dyson identified with the existing products.

It’s the key to building business, Dyson says. With a flood of cheap products coming from lower cost economies, products have to be smarter and provide better value.

One feature of the recession, particularly in Ireland, is the drop-off in domestic spending and personal consumption. But people make more intelligent buying decisions in a recession, he says.

It follows, therefore, that it’s a good opportunity for a great idea to get noticed and for companies that offer intelligent products to prosper.

In recent months, James Dyson has advised governments in the US and the UK to get behind innovation if they want to rebuild economies that have taken a beating in recent years. Ireland, meanwhile, has tried to build a knowledge economy based on high-tech industries.

“Government must provide incentives to inventive companies, but also encourage a new generation of problem solvers,” he tells The Irish Times.

“Within the next 10 years, 58 per cent of all new jobs and 20 per cent of all jobs in the UK will need a background in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. Stimulating creative sciences and design bolsters the home grown economy, creating jobs and tangible things the both Ireland and the UK can export.”

DYSON NO LONGER makes its products in the UK; it moved manufacturing out of Britain more than 10 years ago, when it was refused planning permission to expand its factory in Wiltshire. But it has arguably something far more valuable. These days, its UK operation concentrates on research and development.

Research and development is something that Dyson invests heavily in, and despite the downturn, he says the company has only increased that. In 2010, it was second only to Rolls Royce in terms of filing patents.

But that focus brings its own challenges as it tries to develop new and innovative products.

“We face new challenges every day – it’s why I enjoy being an engineer,” Dyson says. “Getting our latest Ball vacuum cleaners right took a team of engineers three years. It was not as simple as putting a ball on a cylinder vacuum. The guts of the machine had to be reengineered to include all the ducting, housing, electrics and motor. It’s akin to cramming all the vital organs of your body into your head and surviving the experience.”

Finding the right talent to bring its products to market is also important. He believes that countries should be focusing on innovation, science and engineering at a younger age.

He has done his part to encourage innovation, with the James Dyson Awards, an international student design award run in 18 countries by his charitable trust the James Dyson Foundation. At stake is £10,000 for the inventor, with an addition £10,000 donated to their university.

The awards give designers and engineers a way to come to the attention of investors, and maybe even commercialise the ideas.

“The prize money might help with prototyping but the real value comes from the awareness they raise for the fledgling inventor,” says Dyson. “It’s tough starting out. My business started in a shed, in a recession, but I had an idea that I believed in. The economy today is even more testing and the challenges possibly even bigger.”

Last year’s winner was Edward Linacre from Australia, who took first place with his Airdrop irrigator which extracts water from dry desert air to irrigate crops.

“It’s a very simple concept, but ingenious in its execution,” says Dyson. It’s a sentiment investors obviously agree with; Linacre has been approached by potential investors from Canada, Saudi Arabia and Africa.

“Ireland has always contributed robust and interesting entries. Bed-ridden patient movers, devices to help the blind, and lightweight casts for broken arms have all come from ingenious Irish talent,” says Dyson. “Patrick Maloney, who invented the light-weight arm cast, impressed us so much we took him on. He’s now a senior design engineer at Dyson.”

The best advice he can offer to would-be inventors is to be different.

“Persevere and don’t take ‘expert’ advice,” he says. “Listening to naysayers won’t help you develop your idea. Discover problems with your invention through trial and error, and iron them out with ingenious thinking and academic rigour. Challenging convention and creating something new is how all inventions or businesses begin. Be different.”

And if you’re making waves, you’re obviously doing something right.

However, with global success also comes another hazard – imitation. Dyson’s products have been the subject of much copying, and the company invests millions in pursuing them.

“Copycats limit invention,” he says. “Frustratingly for us, we can’t protect against them. Design does not have the same protection as intellectual property in the UK. We won a case against a rival in France for copying the design of our machine – but lost it in the UK.”

While intellectual property has some degree of protection, the same is not true of design, and it is something that he would like to see strengthened.

“Design rights should be granted the same protection as intellectual property. Why should I invest in RD, employ engineers, and launch new technology for others to copy?”