Contenidos del curso

As a trusted advisor, Alpha increasingly uses design as part of its board-level influence in client firms, and considers it important for the quality of output. Given that Alpha designs and makes very large structures, representing a large investment on the part of their cli-ents, it is perhaps unsurprising there would be high-level engagement. Similarly, Alpha’s own Board includes many designers, receptive to applying design to strategy.

In Beta, product design agencies are used primarily at product strategy level, not corpor-ate level, but may have impact equal to some brand design. R&V design has a higher level of contribution than consumer product design.

As noted above (D-15, 7.4.1, page 151), leadership’s recognition of design is thought to be essential for achieving consistent and complete design application, and permeation of design awareness into corporate culture.

Respondent D-17 observes differences in attitudes and culture in client firms, and believes that design’s high status in the mobile phone firm is a large part due to board-level representation.

“Design needs to have a portfolio owner in an executive board… a that’s critical. [Not ne-cessarily] a designer themselves, it's about being an advocate, believing in the value and being given the portfolio responsibility to ensure that it is engaged in a strategic way.”

[D-17]

It is emphasised that seniority alone is not enough; there must be genuine belief and in-terest in design’s capabilities. This was absent in many subsidised engagements D-16 car-ried out, offering design consulting to British SMEs.

Corroboration and interpretation | Key contributors to strategic design

“Actually the bottom-line is all about attitude… For many years I was engaged by the CBI.¹⁸I was wasting my time with fat, lazy business people … who feigned to be inter-ested. I was convinced they were there for the lunch and really just went away with prob-ably some [token] attention to what they heard… but their attitudes didn’t change.”

[D-16]

Notably, D-16 believes that design executives are more in touch with customers than other Board officers, even Marketing. This echoes the point cited previously, that designers feel more loyalty to the customer than to the firm.

“Everybody is interested in the customer, from sales to marketing to R&D, whatever the function might be around the table, but I think that most of them [even Marketing]

struggle with retaining the empathy with their customer.” [D-16]

Such advocates must be present at high level, but also in numbers – there needs to be suf-ficient individuals in the firm to have an influence.

“The question is what position do they hold, and how many of them are there that can carry [that message] through mass rather than through authority.” [D-17]

It is taken as axiomatic that engagement with senior and Board-level business leaders is necessary for design to inform strategy formulation directly. But if design’s value is recog-nised at senior and Board level, then there is more likely to be an overarching design vis-ion and authority, with which to achieve consistent, complete design and cultural recogni-tion of design.

Design engagement at a high-level is necessary for design to inform strategy formulation. Business leaders who recognise design’s value have authority and influence with which to oversee consistent, complete design, and hence enable contributions to strategy implementation.

7.5 Summary

Each of the proposed contributions has been examined in companies Alpha and Beta, and discussed with designers in the Delta group. By collating the findings it is shown that all of the proposed contributions were either recognised (evidently valued for their strategic contribution) or practised (evidently occurring) in at least one of the three sample groups.

Corroboration and interpretation | Summary

These findings are summarised below in table 9. As all data are qualitative, this is merely a visual summary, and must not be interpreted as any kind of quantitative ‘score’. Note also thatnot evidentmay mean not examined or discussed, so does not necessarily indicate a weak area.

Strategic design contribution Recognised or

practised

Alpha Beta Delta

Design in implementing strategic positioning, fit, learning & culture

Design used to build market differentiation, customer intimacy & perceived value

◆◆ ◆◆ ◆◆

Design influencing dependencies in the supply chain

◆ ◆ ◆

Design integrating and mediating between professional domains

◆ ◆ ◆

Design shaping and communicating corporate culture

◆ ◆ ◆

Design supporting activities in the value chain Design in primary value activities

Inbound logistics

◆ ◇ ◆

Operations

◆◆ ◆ ◆

Outbound logistics

◆ ◇ ◆

Marketing /sales & communication

◆ ◆◆ ◆

Service

◇ ◆ ◆

Design in secondary (support) value activities

HR Management

◆ ◇ ◇

Technology development

◆◆ ◆ ◆

Firm infrastructure

◆ ◇ ◇

Procurement

◇ ◆ ◆

Design in processes and systems of knowledge management

◆◆ ◇ ◇

Design as a tacit knowledge resource: path dependent and hard to imitate

◆◆ ◆ ◇

Design in informing strategy formulation

Stimulating creativity and providing fresh perspectives in the strategy context

◆ ◆ ◆

Exploring uncertainty and assessing trade-off – prototyping & visualisation

◆ ◆ ◆

Achieving a holistic view of complex systems and a shared strategic vision

◆ ◆ ◆

Additional factors influencing strategic design

Design applied to different areas of the business with consistency & completeness

◆ ◆ ◆

Design applied with different stakeholders in mind

◆ ◆ ◆

Design contributing at a high level

◆ ◇ ◆

◆◆ strongly evident

◆ evident

◇ not evident

Table 9: Summary of findings from case studies and corroborating interviews

Corroboration and interpretation | Summary

Notably, design support in secondary value activities (outside of technology development) is less evident. In the case of the Delta group, this may be due to a general focus on primary activities and marketing during the interviews. Still, this suggests that design sup-port in secondary value activities is worthy of further investigation. In general, the pro-posed strategic contributions of design are found to be corroborated by the evidence gathered in this study.

The next chapter discusses some further observations emerging from the study, and pro-poses a combined representation of the identified strategic design contributions.

Corroboration and interpretation | Summary

Chapter 8