Offer You Cannot Refuse

Design as corporate strategy

The Chairman of Sony Corporation, Norio Ohga once said, "At Sony, we assume all products of our competitors will have basically the same technology, price, performance and features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace".

Can good design create a better image for the company? Can design help people feel good about where they work? What has design got to do with the company's environment? Usually people say: This is a good company. They make great products. Sell them everywhere in the world. Everyone is using theirs products/services. Everyone wants to work there. It is a great company to invest in.

When people say: it is a good company, that means that they have heard of it, or they know it and recognize it. This shows that the design of the corporate identity helped the company to get recognized. Research shows that, people think that the companies that they have heard of are better then the companies they have not heard of. The same research shows that people think that companies they have heard of make better products than the ones they have not heard of. The importance of visual communications at this level is greatly evident.

When people say: they make great products, and they sell them everywhere in the world, that is also a matter of design. It's not enough to create a good product. Lots of companies do that. You need to have a great product and convince your customers that you do have it. Price is not always the criteria that people follow when they are choosing over two products. People observe products in details, together with the other services that companies offer along with their products. Careful product design with an overview of user-experience and good knowledge of your target group can help the company to achieve its sales goals. When people say: everyone wants to work there, we are also talking about design at some point. It is not always the pay that people look at when applying for a job. It is the values of the company that they are looking at. Design helps these values to become visible.

Design is now recognized as a major business strategy for competitive success. Businesses and business schools are making genuine efforts to learn more about design and to incorporate sophisticated design thinking in their operations. Governmental institutions, organizations and NGO's are also discovering the value of design thinking. In universities around the world, design educators and design researchers are finding new audiences and new opportunities for leadership. To see the multiple values of design clearly we need to view design through the lens of quality. Quality for products is almost always associated with craftsmanship.

The craftsmanship is based around the production, or how well the product was made and manufactured and the quality is a universally recognized requisite for the business success. From the design perspective, quality as craftsmanship is achieved through attention to issues of engineering design and manufacturing. Initially, the idea about craftsmanship appeared because all products were not to an equal standard made. When it comes to this level, well-designed products were easier to manufacture well. When companies responded to the need for better quality control, this idea has broadened and reached another level. This level is the design of the detail. Design contributed to performance, human factors and appearance. This has been initiated by the growing awareness of the competitive advantages of well-detailed products. This trend continues, and another level of quality has emerged as a hallmark for competitiveness - the concept design. Consumers perceive concepts that are holistic and thorough as better and with more value. Also, well-designed products are harder to get copied by the competitors. It is essential to know the competition. If the brand is to be successful in the market place - then it does not only need to satisfy its consumers, but be better than anyone else in its category. The industry today can make almost everything that consumera??s desire. We cannot have everything, but we are getting closer - and design is the force that pushes the boundaries.

Copyright by Gjoko Muratovski 2004 - 2006; Beyond Design; Nampress Publishing