LONDON:New insights into the impact of design on strategy in large corporations comes courtesy of the UK Design Council in a report: "Eleven Lessons: managing design in eleven global brands."
The Design Council conducted interviews with senior management at brands including BSkyB, Virgin Atlantic, Lego, Whirlpool, Microsoft and Yahoo to find out where design fitted not just in their product lifecycle but in the overall management of the firm.
Talking design at the highest level of the company turned out to be one consistent finding from all eleven design-led companies. Having access to the CEO office and a design champion at the most senior levels of strategic decision making was a success factor common to all.
But if that has a ring of the obvious about it the 11 cases, which are presented on the Design Council website in full, each has a different lesson attached.
Notably, companies such as Microsoft and Lego have evolved their corporate strategy around design in the recent past and hold out lessons for other potential "converts" to the design cause.
An apparently straightforward product, Lego's simple snap-together bricks keep a design team of 135 people busy and have prompted three major transitions in design processes over the past decade in response to rapidly changing market conditions.
Two years ago Lego introduced a new process Design For Business (D4B) to ensure its design teams worked towards realisable business objectives at the same time as cutting the product lifecycle down from an average of two years, to 12 months. DB4 helped Lego to triple its profitability in the first year of implementation The lesson? Don't stand still..
Troubled by the vocal criticism that its de facto standard products can attract Microsoft too has been placing more importance on design in recent years. Designers are now integrated into all product development teams and are mentored by the company's User Experience Excellence group which has company wide responsibility for keeping designers focused on the experience of Microsoft products.
These companies, "have embraced the fact that design offers business a different perspective on the challenges they face in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace," says Design Council chief David Kester referring to all 11 cases.
Of the 11 Starbucks stands out as a star in the application of design. In a period of rapid change the coffee chain is singularly skilled in being to provide consistent experiences and brand values with regularly changing design themes proving that change can be consistently managed.
For those interested, the Design Council case studies of all 11 companies can be found at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/managingdesign/Eleven-lessonsand include a summary of the companies' innovation models, design process and the contribution of design to profitability.
