Be Designit
The Best Known Secret
Class 4, TEMO Tosserne Andreas Kjærsgaard Løvstrøm (s113204) Hans Henrik Halvbjørn (s113340) Marie Nørgaard Højen (s113233) Martin Bakhaj Christiansen (s113220) Nanna Thorning-Schmidt (s113205) Rosa Elisabeth Lindqvist (s113229) All group members have contributed equally to the project
Be Designit
A New Strategic Focus
Designit: A Well Kept Secret
An Analysis
New Ways
Be Designit: New Strategic Focus
Strategic Design Firm, p. 3 Business of Designit, p. 4
Doing the Right Things, p. 6 Key External Forces, p. 9 Doing Things Right, p. 10 A Bigger Picture, p. 13
New Ways for Designit, p. 14
Designit 2.0, p. 16 Impact on Designit, p. 18
Designit
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Strategic Design Firm ‘ We’re a global strategic design firm. We design product-service experiences, making business transformation happen.’
In co-creation with customers, Designit creates user experiences beyond a normal products sale. It is Designit’s thesis that customers expect more than just a transaction of goods; they expect an experience in every transaction they perform, whether it is with their energy supplier, when they buy a car, or when they make a phone call, etc. This is where strategic design appears. Strategic design is the creation of user experiences, using design and technology to provide the user with more than just a product: A unified product-service experience. Designit is a global strategic design firm, consisting of more than 320 employees, 32 nationalities working with 28 different educational backgrounds.
designit.com
Three Themes Defining the Future
In opposition to other consultants, Designit does not limit themselves to specific industries. Designit are generalists, working within three themes of the future: Future Citizens, Smarter Living, and Healthier Lives. Together with every customer, Designit creates a shared vision for the future, and this vision is essential for Designit. If the vision does not comply with one of the three themes for the future, Designit will not go through with the project. Any business that shares these visions for the future can be a customer of Designit.
Five Phases of Strategic Design
The approach to any strategic design process at Designit builds on the same framework and the same five phases. Every process is iterative, but overall the process starts with creating a common understanding of the present through disruptive insights. Next, the future vision and concept are created, followed by the experience roadmap telling Designit how to transform the future customer journeys. The experience is then designed and prototyped and lastly implemented.
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‘Reaching beyond sectors, disciplines, and borders, we bring together the best people to create solutions for the future.’ designit.com
Designit
Business of Designit
Development
Designit started as a product innovation firm, doing strict product design in the traditional design context. Nowadays however, Designit is more of a CRM-company (Customer Relationship Management), engaging in longer and deeper relations with customers. With the strategic design approach, Designit wishes to evolve the strategic focus on product-service experiences for the customer and educate customers on the importance and significance of just this, rather than just designing a single product. Some of the jobs Designit gets are still pure product innovation (PI). Therefore, Designit is currently a bundled organisation with both CRM and PI. In order to succeed fully with the strategic design, Osterwalder and Pigneur (Business Model Generation, 2010) argue that Designit should focus 100 percent on being either a PI or a CRM business. This will be elaborated on page 14. Point of no return (When the World goes Strategic design process)
Technological opportunities
Strategic design demand
The exponential technology development is Designit’s potential
Strategic design supply
Time 1997 www
2007 iPhone
A few years ago
Now
A few years from now
Figure 1 Market Development, Assessed by Designit
Designit
According to CFO Kasper Rousøe, Designit usually removes worries or problems for the clients. However, he also states that they would much rather create dreams for the future with their clients. Doing a VRISAanalysis, it becomes visible that Designit only has a temporary competitive advantage. The VRISA-analysis assesses what makes a business model profitable through a focus on the competitive advantage’s sustainability. The focus is on the attributes Value, Rareness, Imitability, Substitutability, and Appropriability.
‘Not all customers understand what strategic design is’
Mikal Hallstrup, CVO
Focusing on strategic design in the VRISA-analysis, it is clear that a re-creation of the product experiences has the potential to create a value for clients. Furthermore, Designit is one of few on the market that offers strategic design. It is therefore fair to assume that strategic design is rare on the market and somewhat difficult to imitate. However, most customers do not understand the potential of strategic design, and often traditional management consultants or designers will come into the picture rather than Designit. Therefore, the substitutability of Designit is relatively high. Looking at the opportunities of strategic design assessed by Designit (see Figure 1), the demand for strategic design will grow over time corresponding to the technological development, and therefore there is a revenue potential. It is also fair to assume that the demand for strategic design increases with the general market. Thus, it can be concluded from the VRISA-analysis that Designit’s competitive advantage can be more sustainable by pursuing opportunities and eliminating threats. 4
Prestigious Stand-Alone Projects
Over the last years, Designit has had a lot of large customers. Many of them have engaged in larger projects with Designit: Worth mentioning is the creation of an Audi sales office in London. The sales office has been revolutionary for the way to sell cars and is now one of the major sales offices in terms of revenue according to Kasper Rousøe. There are many examples of prestigious projects like this, where Designit has created something big for their clients. However, it is too often stand-alone projects. This means that the full potential of the strategic design is not fulfilled. It is, according to CFO Kasper Rousøe, Designit’s wish to design unified product experiences for their clients’ entire product portfolios in order to release the full potential of strategic design. However, the customers do not request this, and therefore Designit mostly works with single product experiences. Furthermore, the CFO states that Designit does not have exactly the customers they want. Designit wants to have more customers within the production heavy industry, who are willing to engage in the unified product experience development. However, Designit does not, according to the CFO, know how to target and reach these customers.
A Well Kept Secret
During the sessions with Designit, it has been mentioned numerous times, that Designit is ‘a well kept secret.’ This mindset can be a barrier towards attracting new customers, since the words we use make our reality (according to appreciative inquiry). Since Designit wants to impact the world, being a secret and having this weak self-perception is not beneficial for Designit.
‘We are a well kept secret’
Kasper Rousøe, CFO
Looking at designit.com it is difficult to find well described examples of strategic design - not even mentioning a clear definition of it. Combined with the current mindset, it is concludable that Designit’s key problem is that they do not convey their value proposition succesfully and consequently they have a hard time aquiring the kind of projects and connections they want. This is a strategic and fundamental issue for Designit and therefore an issue that the top management of Designit should address. Therefore, the top management of Designit is the problem owner.
Designit does not convey their value proposition successfully Designit has a hard time acquiring the kind of projects and connections with top managements they want 5
Top management issues
Designit
Doing the Right Things It is essential to know how effective Designit is, and for that a business model canvas is used. A business model canvas is a strategic management tool, which is a way to describe or develop a business model. The canvas is a visual chart consisting of nine building blocks which tells something about the company’s customers, infrastructure, finances and most importantly what the company is offering. Designit’s business model canvas (see Figure 2) contains some of the challenges the company is facing and it partly explains why the key problem exists. This section will work its way through the most important building blocks and locate the challenges as well as causal explanations. One of the building blocks in the canvas is the ‘value proposition’, which describes the bundle of products and services that create value for a specific customer segment. The perhaps most important part for Designit is to convey their value proposition and making sure that the customers understand it. We first take a look at their value proposition from what Designit shows on their website in the quote below:
‘We’re a global strategic design firm. We design product-service experiences, making business transformation happen.’
designit.com
Neither unified nor holistic is mentioned here. If you don’t know what strategic design is, these lines do not tell you much. Designit might as well be an advertisement company. Furthermore, who wants to read more when it says that Designit wants to transform your business? It does not sound very appealing to get ones business transformed by some outsidDesignit
ers who do not know your company; especially to top management of big engineering/production companies, to whom design probably only exists in its traditional sense. Secondly, we look at the value proposition presented at DTU in the quote below:
‘With our clients, we create experiences for humans, enabled by technology. Together, we design a smarter future for everyone.’ designit.com
Again, it is not a clear what Designit does or what the customers get. Does it mean that Designit provides technology or do Designit only want customers who sell technology? And yet again advertising and design in the traditional sense could be what the viewer gets from it, and nothing is said about the holistic/unified part.
Unified Product-Service Experience - PSE
We design beyond category experiences that transform businesses. Through our strategic design process we create intangible and tangible products tied into smart devices. (p. 8 in Designit TEMO challenge Handout)
This is what we have interpreted as Designit’s value proposition. This statement elaborates the meaning of ‘unified’, but the strategy part of the unified experience is not explained here either. The transforming businesses part has been discussed earlier. Therefore, the value proposition is not clear and explicit.
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For most people these value statements will not be self-explanatory. It should not be taken for granted that people (CEOs and top managers) of big engineering or production companies know about strategic design. Most know about traditional design and management consulting, but not everyone can imagine what it means when they are combined. They cannot be expected to find out by themselves, that is Designit’s job. Designit clearly has troubles conveying their value proposition, and we look into the building block ‘channels’. Designit’s primary channels are the website and their reputation. The choice and amount of marketing and self-promotion are important because that is a face of a company outwards and therefore where they acquire new customers. In addition to that, when the CFO of Designit was asked whether they attend conferences his answer was simply ‘not enough’, which suggests that the company is aware of their shortcomings in this area.
Key Partners
Key Activities
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• • •
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Educational insitutions Designit academy
Five step model Strategic design Product innovation
In ‘channels’ there are two important things to consider. First, if a company wants to reach top management of big production heavy companies they need to be where these people look. This is about choosing the right kind of channels. We imagine that if a person have never heard of strategic design or Designit, it is not likely that they will find their webpage. As a company that knows itself, as a well-kept secret, reputation as a channel might be too weak to rely on. Secondly, if a company wants to do something, here strategic design, it is 1) important that people know what it is or at least what the company’s value proposition is and 2) the company needs to show that they are good at it. This is more about content and the way that it is presented. One of the purposes of ‘channels’ is to raise awareness and another is to get the value proposition to market, and it seems like they do inadequately in both.
Value Proposition
Customer Relationships
Customer Segment
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• •
• • •
Future citizens Healthier lives Smarter living
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Shared visions for the future High diversity
Unified Product-Service experience
Co-creation Middle management
Key Resources
Channels
• •
• •
Designers Strategists
Reputation designit.com
Cost Structure
Revenue Streams
• •
• •
Saleries Offices (5 %)
Consultancy Projects
}
•
post-payment Figure 2 Designit’s Business Model Canvas
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Designit
On Designit’s website, they does show some showcases, but it is not clear what the role of Designit has been in these. In the example with Audi it does not indicate whether Designit made the concept, software, physical implementation or something else. It might be difficult for Designit to take credit when it is made in co-creation with Audi. However, it could be much clearer what Designit actually contributed to. Additionally, it seems like Designit is also challenged in the ‘customer segment’ building block because they have (and want) many different kinds of customers from different industries. Again, the issue lies in channels because it is harder to get a good reputation in many different industries than in just a few. In addition to that, a highly diverse customer group is also harder to target/reach, because they then have to show that they are good at strategic design for different types of companies and diverse customers might require different types of marketing. Though, targeting different industires can be an advantage since it makes Designit independent on the development in certain industries. The ‘customer relationships’ building block is probably highly affected by communication channels. According to Kasper Rousøe, Designit currently only reaches middle management level, mainly marketing and production managers. However, since they want the bigger picture, namely to create unified product-service experiences through strategic design, they need to reach top management. Though, the these issues are based in the channels. As Designit wants to target engineering companies, looking into the ‘key resources’ building block, it could be an issue that Designit does not have any engineers employed. Therefore, engineering companies are likely to believe that Designit cannot understand their company. Consequently, customers might choose companies with engineers rather than a company with no engineers.
Designit
Overall, it can be concluded from the canvas that there are some things to work on, most important the formulation of the value proposition and the choice of channels (together with the content). It is crucial to make sure that the value proposition and what Designit does can be explained short and precise especially when one of the main channels is reputation. The fact that most of the building blocks are satisfactory/sufficient together with the issues in channels suggests that Designit’s has a medium effectiveness.
Key External Forces
The key external forces model (see Figure 3) describes what external forces that affects the company. As these external forces constantly are developing, in today’s society, it is important to continuously taking these into account by aligning the business model to these. The forces are divided into four categories; key trends, market forces, macroeconomic forces and industrial forces. Investigating the four key external forces on Designit, we can conclude that there are several factors from each category that influence their business. There are factors that are helping Desigint in their work process and there are factors that are creating problems for Designit but they all lead to that the key problem obviously needs to be solved. Thereby saying that the helping factors only are beneficial and that the problem factors only are avoided, if the key problem is solved. One of the biggest problems for Designit, is the potential increase in the number of competitors, and therefore the number of substitutes that are entering the market, which tells us that Designit has to act now to avoid losing market share. Meanwhile, one good thing for Designit is the increasing demand for potential strategic design as we saw in Figure 1. As Designit is one of the greater players regarding strategic design, this is in Designit’s favour. These results support that the changes Designit has to make primarily lies in the channels and the value proposition block.
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Key External Forces Key Trends
Customers are becoming more aware that their products are becoming a part of a large connection between several products. Further, there is a tendency towards buying a service instead of a product. An example is the service of ‘sharing cars’. Instead of simply buying a car, the product, you Market Forces buy the service of having a car for short period. Overall, customers want cohesive Industry Forces The general growth in solutions that are well aligned throughout services and products. While looking at the industhe macroeconomy leads to Designit has already figured these trends out. The problem is still trial forces and specifically the greater needs and demands by though that the customers do not know that Designit is part of other competitors there are customers. These needs and deable to fulfil these trends, again leading us to the several other similar players at the marmands are after potential strategic design key problem. ket. There is only one other company that ofas the market is changing towards a market fer both creation of strategy, product innovation that needs coherence and holistic view of servicand user experience: frog design. Other competitors es. These needs are currently below what Designit can are McKinsey, Deloitte, Smart design, etc., but none of offer (Figure 1), but in the future it will be exceeded. The these companies have the same wide portfolio as Designit. diverse customer segment, makes Designit able to grow With these competitors, it is easy for potential customers in the future. Even though they are providing services for to choose another and perhaps cheaper design company many different customers the switching costs are low, as than Designit. Therefore, it is important for Designit that long as customers do not demand holistic strategic dethey convey their value propositions successfully such sign. Customers might not be willing to pay more than that they diffenretiate more traditional design compathey do for Designit’s products and services at the nies. New entrants will possibly come up due to Macroeconomic Forces moment. However, they might be if they realize the future increase in demand for strategic A general macroeconomic force is that that they need holistic strategic design design, yet again illustrating the point production in the industry is increasing. Furtherand understand that Designit is one that Designit needs to convey their more, the Danish GDP is increasing. This leads to a higher of the only companies on the value proposition before new demand for products and services as well as employment and labour. market that is providing this entrants steal it. While talking about resources, one could mention talent. There exist many deservice. sign firms, so finding the right and talented designers is a challenge.
Figure 3 Key External Forces
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Designit
Doing Things Right In order to examine the organizational design framework of Designit, the Star model is used. The Star model provides a framework to assess and design organizations, and consists of five categories, namely strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people practice. The model can help to identify how all five elements of an organization must be aligned to deliver strategy.
Flexibility, innovation Competitive advantage
We start by looking at the strategy of Designit, i.e. their formula for winning. Designit does not communicate one clear strategy, but several phrases that might be a strategy. One states that:
‘We grow businesses by designing new experiences for humans enabled by technology’ TEMO Handout, p. 2
Another states that:
’We design product-service experiences, making business transformation happen’ designit.com
Yet another states that they are:
’Turning technology and user driven opportunities into powerful, meaningful, and valuable experiences for people’
designit.com
Designit
Quality
Cocreation Figure 4 Competitive Advantage
One could also argue that the three themes defining the future are stategic focus areas. Overall, Designit has many different strategies, some of them are not quite coherent, and that makes it unclear what they actually want. In addition, it is within the strategy we look at Designit’s competitive advantage. Their competitive advantage (see Figure 4) shows that it is primarily within the quality, innovation (their core competence) and flexibility (they are generalists) that Designit has their competitive advantage, i.e. their ability to outperform others.
‘If our solutions do not meet the need of our customer and our self, we leave the project’ Kasper Rousøe, CFO
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The next thing to look at in the Star model is the structure. The structure in Designit is flat, which means that there are few levels in the organizational structure. Furthermore, it seems like it is a project oriented structure, which are geographically oriented. The flat and project oriented structure consists with the idea that the company is a very innovative and creative company. The innovative way of thinking makes the processes in which they work lateral, cross-pollinated and a reciprocal performance (see Figure 5), as they share knowledge, interact with one another and co-ordinate their efforts to achieve the goals. Another thing is that Designit’s work process puts a great emphasis on their strategic design process that consists of a five-step model.
with a majority of designers. Still Designit tells that they are having trouble recruiting the right employees. When dealing with cross-functional teams it requires people who are generalists and who can cooperate with each other. This is consistent with their flexibility in their competitive advantage. Apart from that, it is obvious that the company and employees have the ‘well kept secret’ mindset incorporated. This may be a problem when trying to reach other customers segments. Thereby, it appears that the five elements in the Star model for Designit overall are aligned, making their efficiency medium-high, which indicates that they are doing things right. This means that they make good use of their resources. On the whole, Designit’s effectiveness is medium, as there are some issues with some of the building blocks in their business model canvas. This shows that Designit might not be doing the right things.
Figure 5 Reciprocal Performance
The fourth point in the Star model is to look into whether the goals of the employee is aligned with the goals of the organization. This point is the reward system. Their main reward system is their intrinsic motivation, i.e. it provides a sense of pleasure for changing the world. In addition to this other reward systems is the personal development and stock options they have. With that, one could also say that it is clan control because the mechanisms, which control the activities, are based on norms and values. The last category in the Star model is the people practice. The employees in Designit are very competent within their field, and there is a great diversity with respect to educational background and skills in the company yet 11
Designit
Organisational Alignment People Practises - Diversity in Educational Backgrounds - Overweight of Designers - Generalism - Mindset of being a ‘Well-Kept-Secret’
Strategy
- Growing Businesses - Unified Product-Service Experience - Future Citizens, Smarter Living, and Healthier Lives
Structure
- Few Organisational Levels - Project Oriented
Reward Systems
- Intrinsic Motivation - Stock Options - Value and Norm Driven
Processes
- Reciprocal Performance - Strategic Design Process
Designit
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A Bigger Picture To get a bigger perspective, a SWOT-analysis is performed. A SWOT-analysis is widely used method within strategic development. SWOT as an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The method is creating overview and structure about a given company’s strengths and competitive position.
It shows easily when focusing on the SWOT that Designit are good at handling the relationship with their customers. However, it also shows that the customers and prospects are having trouble understanding the meaning and value of strategic design. Therefore, Designit does not release the full potential of their value proposition, and sometimes they will even be deselected.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Designit has pleased customers with whom they build strong relationships in the co-creation of products experiences of high quality.
Designit has some financial issues, e.g. a decreasing profits, cash flow restraints, and low revenues per project.
Designit has the possibility to reach more prospects. By using different channels of communication, Designit can reach top managements and create a need for them to do strategic design in their company.
Prospects do not understand Designit’s value proposition properly, and therefore they substitute strategic design with management consulting and traditional product design innovation. Hence, it is difficult to attract new customers.
There is a large diversity in the customer segment, making Designit somewhat pristined by the individual customer’s ability to pay. The key resources and activities are unique and difficult to imitate. The need for resources are somewhat predictable, making strategic planning easy.
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Designit has trouble conveying their value proposition. The channels used to reach customers are few and inefficient and the brand appears weak. Hence, Designit has issues acquiring the customers they really want. There is an overweight of designers at Designit, and therefore a too low diversity of employees.
Furthermore, it is possible to increase the prices of Designit’s services, giving a larger revenue and more clearly signalling the quality of Designit. Finally, there is potential for growth in partnering up with e.g. educational insitutions.
It is difficult for Designit to attract the necessary skilled employees. This causes that Designit can not take on all the jobs they would like, because they do simply not have the manpower to finish the projects.
Designit
New Ways for Designit After analyzing the business of Designit, it has become evident that even though Osterwalder and Pigneur (Business Model Generation, 2010) argue that Designit should focus 100 percent on being either a PI or a CRM business, Designit wouldn’t be Designit if they were not bundled, because of Designts value proposition, specifically the integration of strategy and product innovation. With this in mind several suggestions are proposed to solve the observed key problem. The proposed solutions are all addressing the top management of Designit.
Business as Usual
Have One Clear Strategy, Vision and Value Proposition
In order for a company to convey their value proposition successfully, it is of key importance to know what can be offered to the customers and with which strategy this will be achieved. This means that the company must have a clear formulation of their strategy. In the case of Designit, the top management must formulate a clear, concise and comprehensible strategy. As the vision for Designit is to design a smarter future for everyone and impact the world to improve life, it is important that this message be communicated thoroughly as well as the value proposition. It is important because they only want to work with firms that are having the same vision as them.
Time might solve the problem because the demand for strategic design is increasing exponentially the next couple of years, thereby possibly making customers aware themselves that they need strategic design and thereby understand what it means. Unfortunately, this can take years and Designit needs to act now in order to not be beaten by possibly upcoming competitors.
Create Elevator Pitch
Become the Best Known Secret
New designit.com
‘The Best Known Secret’ is a new twist of the current ‘well kept secret’ mindset. Being the best known secret means that Designit should be a secret, meaning that their clients officially take credit, but in the B2B-society, it should be known that Designit was behind. The phrase ‘best known secret’ is something that everyone at Designit should be able to identify them with. Therefore, ‘Designit: The Best Known Secret’ can become a new strategic focus in Designit’s market approach.
Designit
Every employee could always have an elevator pitch ready. It should explain their value proposition and strategic design to make sure that the message is widespread. In this way they can create a clear and stable reputation about themselves. When that reputation is established, the potential customers are able to realize their need for Designit.
The website could include a short description of what strategic design actually is and what differentiates it from traditional design. This description could also be included in the video on the website. This will make the stated value proposition clear and thereby make the customers aware of their need for Designit.
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Reach Prospects Through Additional Channels
Be More Expensive (Sub Problem)
Partner Up
Post Payment Designit already does this, as it is the industry standard for project-oriented work. However, Designit has an opportunity to raise their prices to better correspond to the expensive management consultancy companies. This would to a higher degree indicate the quality of the work of Designit as well as provide Designit with extra income.
To get out of the secrecy and to further convey their value proposition, Designit could publish an article or an advertisement in a business magazine, which top managers possibly would read. Designit could also participate in conferences with the same purpose.
As done with the students and teachers on the TEMO course on DTU, establish more partnerships with DTU or other universities having students there could be future employees or customers. In this way the potential future employees can get to know the ideas and importance of what Designit does and specialize towards it. On the potential customer side, they could choose students, which probably will end up working in companies, which Designit want as customers. Thereby having more people to firstly understand Designit’s value proposition and then secondly spread it. The only expense for having universities as key partners is time, and as explained it’s a good way to spread their value proposition. By partnering up they both attract possible future employees and are performing indirect marketing.
Employ Engineers
One opportunity is to employ engineers and thereby not only appear as designers to the industries that they want. This idea of having diverse educational backgrounds is nothing new to Designit and would fit in well with their current culture. However, as this might cause the amount of possible employees to grow, another way of filtering people could be needed. This should only be considered if they have jobs for engineers. During the analysis another problem became evident, namely the payment. This problems is not directly linked to the key problem (which should then be solved first), but a solution to the sub problem is worth taking into consideration as a possible solution.
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Designit has an opportunity to increase their prices, but wants to apply a long-tail business strategy for customers with different financial resources. They should therefore implement two different payment methods in order to comply with this segmentation.
Usage Fee In order for Designit to attract smaller companies with lesser financial resources, they should include an option for customers to pay a smaller initial fee for the project. In return, Designit will charge a small payment every time a product is sold or a service is used. This would correspond to raising the prices for the work of Designit while maintaining smaller companies as customers. It would imply a shared responsibility between the two parts since they would both profit from the increased sale of a quality product. This would also work well with the idea of Designit to enter into co-creation with their customers. In order to determine which single payment price Designit must charge their customers, we must know what all the competition charge for their work. Both management consulting and tradition product design companies. In addition, it is necessary to have an idea of the financial resources available for smaller companies who want traditional product design. This will allow Designit to come up with an acceptable usage fee.
Designit
Designit 2.0 This section will introduce the solution we have chosen and elaborate on how it can be implemented by Designit. It is supposed to be read as a full plan of action.
Become the Best Known Secret
This recommendation differs from the others in the way that it is not implemented by just deciding to implement it. It takes time to change the mindset of an organisation, but it will be a good way to initiate this plan of action. Designit should not hesitate to put ‘The Best Known Secret’ slogan on business cards, telling the customers face-to-face, and use it in advertisements and in social medias. In addition, an essential part of implementing the slogan will be to explain to the employees what the slogan means, and, most importantly, that if the employees adopt the mindset, then Designit has a better chance of becoming known. We believe in the ‘what you think – you become’ saying and so should Designit. A slogan and a common mindset can gather and create common identity and therefore result in an internally strong company. A strong identity can make employees talk proudly about their company and work, which is part of how their name and value proposition are going to be spread.
Have One Clear Strategy, Vision and Value Proposition
The second step is about making things clear and simple. That they know who they are and what they want will give Designit a strong identity and competitive edge. It is the most direct solution to the key problem, because it will solve the fact that people do not understand strategic design and hence their value proposition. It is one of the best things Designit can do in order to strengthen their competitive advantage and position in the market. As the company’s visions and dreams revolves around holistic product design, this phrase could very well be a part of that strategy statement as it captures the essential value proposition provided by Designit. Still the vision and value proposition should be communicated through the right channels. Our proposal to a formulation of the value proposition is presented in the black box at the bottom of this page. Further, the competitive positioning (p. 16 in TEMO Handout) is an excellent way of informing customers what they receive from Designit and this could be communicated on the website as well. It is an advantage because it puts Designit in context with some of the biggest companies while still explains perfectly what advantage they offer compared to the competition. Regarding the vision it is important because Designit wants to attract customers who share their vision.
Strategic design is the integration of design, product innovation and company strategy with a holistic user experience and a unified product portfolio as output. We strongly believe that this is the way to stay competitive in the future where the importance of the bigger picture will continue to increase. Designit
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Communicate Value Proposition
3. Use Additional Channels To get out of the secrecy and to further convey their value proposition it is a good idea to use additional channels. First of all it is about identifying which magazines the people they wish to target reads, which conferences the industries have and use them. It could e.g. be to publish an article or an advertisement in a specific business magazine or to attend the right conferences with a stand or small event. If the targets were software companies, it seems obvious to attend a software or IT conference, but it could just as well be about the prospects’ own customer conferences.
1. Create Elevator Pitch It is crucial that everyone in Designit understands the value proposition and knows how to convey it in a brief, precise and interesting manner. Reputation or mouth-to-mouth will continue to be one of Designit’s key channels and that is why it is so important.
When thinking about content and the way it is presented through the channels it is good to consider Hofstede’s Model of National Culture, especially because Designit spread around the World. Different types of marketing will appeal to different cultures and Hofstede’s model looks into five dimensions; masculinity vs. femininity, individualism vs. collectivism together with uncertainty avoidance, time orientation and power distance. And that could be something Designit could take into account when they start advertising for themselves in the different countries they work in.
After a value proposition has been clearly formulated it should be efficiently communicated. There are different opportunities in this area and one does not exclude the others, but we have prioritized the possibilities based on importance/relevance, cost and reach. If Designit does this right, there is no longer a barrier of understanding what it is all about and therefore no obstacles. In other words, with a well-communicated value proposition nothing stands in the way between prospect customers and Designit.
Practically, Designit would benefit from organising an employee conference workshop with the purpose of conveying the vision and value proposition of Designit, which would create ownership of the elevator pitch and strengthen the company’s identity. 2. Improve Content on Website It would be a good idea to avoid ambiguous and vague phrases, because it can potentially cause confusion, which could make the reader move on. Here as well the key words are; brief, precise and interesting. In the cases on the website, Designit could be clearer in what they actually contributed to in the projects as mentioned earlier with the Audi case. To solve this, there should be a few lines on the work process for Designit in each case.
Partner up
This solution comes as an additional action because it will help solve the key problem long term. Follow the procedure as done with the students in the TEMO course with a few exceptions. Our impression is that after the first presentation of Designit, many of the TEMO attendants were still uncertain about what strategic design actually is. This could have been explained by using the proposed elevator pitch in the beginning of the presentation.
Additionally Designit should enhance cases done within the wanted industry in which the holistic strategic design has proven successful instead of just showing them all, they should prioritize the cases. 17
Designit
Impact on Designit We do not expect Designit to agree with all of our solutions or recommendations and carry them out in real life. Instead, we expect them to listen to the points and arguments presented in the report and then carry out an analysis with these focus points. Given the recommendations and key issues from the analysis, we believe that the top management at Designit will become aware of the fact that a simple marketing strategy is not enough for them to win strategic projects within production heavy industries. They might as well be surprised with regard to the total amount of discovered problems as well as the extent to which the problems are related to the company’s strategy and mind-set – not marketing strategy as they thought.
Designit
In addition, we believe that Designit did not think of themselves as having essential problems when they first contacted DTU. Most likely, they have conducted an internal analysis to identify the source of the problem, but have only been able to identify a superficial problem as their key problem. However, it is difficult to do a thorough analysis as employees are biased and have a hard time acting objectively. This means that they have not identified the source of the problem and thereby not completed the first step of ‘Four Steps in Organizational Change’ in which the need for change is assessed. The consequence of this is that Designit has identified the wrong obstacles to change.
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Be the Best Known Secret
The problem at hand –– Designit remains a secret because of their mindset Actions for the future –– Stop talking about Designit as a well-kept secret –– Give life to a new mindset Value creation –– Giving energy to something positive rather than negative –– Setting a new focus and thereby indicating change
Be Precise
Be Present
The problem at hand –– It is difficult to understand what value Designit adds –– Customers deselect Designit in benefit of competitors
The problem at hand –– Few and inefficient channels to reach customers –– Customers have no knowledge about Designit
Actions for the future –– Formulate a clear vision, strategy and value proposition –– Be clear on what message should be conveyed –– Utilize elevator pitch Value creation –– Customers and prospects will understand your value proposition –– More prospects will choose Designit
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Actions for the future –– Be visible, where your prospect are –– Utilize targeted magazines and conferences Value creation –– Making sure that your future customers know who you are –– Chance to increase customer base
Be Partners
The problem at hand –– Not enough ’right’ employees Actions for the future –– Partner up with universities who has potential employees/customers –– Utilize elevator pitch Value creation –– Students might become new customers, employees, or spread the word about strategic design
Be Designit
The problem at hand –– Designit does not convey their value proposition successfully –– Designit has a hard time acquiring the kind of projects and connections with top management they want Actions for the future –– Be the best known secret –– Be precise –– Be present –– Be partners Value creation –– Creating a strong brand –– Formulating what Designit is –– Communicating what Designit is –– Secure the future
Designit
Be Designit Strategic design is the integration of design, product innovation and company strategy with a holistic user experience and a unified product portfolio as output. We strongly believe that this is the way to stay competitive in the future where the importance of the bigger picture will continue to increase.