DESIGN COMPANY
feature
Delivering excellence
in retail ( and mo r e )
The Design Company specialises in “designing and building” beautiful and meaningful spaces – retail spaces in particular.
By Ian Armitage
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www.southafricamag.com
The Design Company focus retail
R
etail space planning is of strategic importance to the retailer. Now, just a few years ago, space planning was pretty much only about planograms – creating a pictorial representation of the products on a shelf, in 2D, to provide to stores with a standard merchandising instruction. But the approach didn’t work. Stores had to interpret how to implement their size-group planogram to best fit their actual space, and in so doing reliably deviated from the intent of the central team. Things have changed. And the change is spearheaded by Cape Town-based The Design Company (TDC). Now don’t let the name fool you, it does far more than it would imply. “It isn’t about what colour the walls should be, or whether that curtain is just right. What you will hear are discussions about aspects of brand DNA, retail solutions and a total strategy,” director Marc Olivier says. “We try to understand what the brand DNA is. The first step is always to define the strategy for the brand. It is part of understanding the mechanics of what the brand must do. We include the client in the process. The
research and the strategic planning are carried out in partnership with them so that by the time we produce the design brief, it is what they expect.” TDC’s client list reads like a who’s who in South African retailing. “We provide an end to end solution, from creating the brand to the visual merchandising and we are also able to offer clients specific items on our menu of services,” says Olivier. “For this to work there have to be a number of disciplines in place, all doing the work that they do best. You’ll never find one of our designers doing procurement, or a project manager designing: each project/brand has a dedicated team.” As successful as TDC is, it is eager for more. It is refining how it operates. “We have five interrelated disciplines for a full client offering,” says Olivier. “That starts with TDC strategy that sets business and personal strategies as well as change management and coaching. We then have a conceptual design studio called Colours & Co. which specialises in corporate identity development, branding and visual merchandising. We then have TDC Retail, our traditional business for design and build of retail solutions. Then we added TDC Architecture just over a
We provide an end to end solution, from creating the brand to the visual merchandising
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year ago, which is design and build of exterior and interior architecture solutions. The last discipline is TDC Events, where we design and execute memorable events. Those are the five different disciplines encompassing a 360-degree creative hub from strategy to creativity, detailing, procuring and finally implementation. That is what the business covers at the moment and plan to re-launch next year as TDC & Co. That will basically cover those five disciplines.” I know what you’re thinking, why? “I think it was the need to diversify a bit,” says Olivier. “We had gotten to a certain size in the industry where we had pretty much touched every big retailer at some stage and there are also a lot of international companies coming in who are looking for a much more cohesive solution where it doesn’t just touch on the retail design and build, but really extends into a brand expression that is fully aligned. We felt the only way you can do this is to ensure that all the different touch points on the brand are interrelated and cohesive in the way that they’re managed. We found that a lot of our clients who are very busy running
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The Design Company focus retail
their businesses have struggled dealing with all the different agencies and pulling everything together. If you’re dealing with three or four agencies it is very difficult, from a client’s perspective, to pull that into a cohesive solution that fully represents the brand. That is when we look and say ’Does everyone understand what that brand strategy is? What is the essence of the brand? What are the values and how does that translate into the different disciplines from branding to interior solutions?’ We don’t want to become a marketing and advertising agency, that’s not our game, but we did feel that by adding on these other disciplines we were able to offer a cohesive solution from corporate identity, development and setting the guidelines, to making sure that the interior solution is relevant and where architecture is required, being able to add that on as well. Because it is all in-house, we have micro teams that align all work across all disciplines, are relevant and responsible to each other in making sure it’s a cohesive offer.” Clients have welcomed the move. “They have,” says Olivier. “New and existing clients have latched onto it very
We were able to offer a cohesive solution from corporate identity, development and setting the guidelines, to making sure that the interior solution is relevant and where architecture is required, being able to add that on as well
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The Design Company focus retail
Centrelec Electrical Contractors Centrelec Electrical Contractors have six branches around South Africa. We have specialised our business in various fields of the electrical industry from new developments, shop installations, equipment repairs, emergency calls and other areas of the industry. Over the past twenty years Centrelec has built up a client base of some reputable companies and architectural firms as well design companies, including The Design Company. Our aim is to provide good prices and excellent workmanship. Our clients are our main concern and we endeavour to entertain all of the client’s needs wherever possible.
quickly. There was a hunger and a need for us to do it so we tapped into that.” The time now is to makes sure “the vision of becoming a 360-degree creative hub is realised,” he adds. “We want to make sure that we have the correct support structures in place and to this end, we are setting up a management company where different divisions will be represented to look after the interests of each of the divisions and cohesive offer in general. It is all geared towards making sure that is realised. We also want to introduce a design academy, where we will put in a finishing school. We think that the students coming out of colleges today really don’t understand the practical implications of what they need to do and there is a big gap between the colleges and the actual practical world. We want to put together a three to six-month academy where they can come in and get to grips with what is required in the industry. Everyone in our management company will be responsible for making sure that the 6
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Through collaboration, we are always striving to be better than we are at present
0027 860 772 759 www.centrelec.co.za
We install and maintain top quality electrical infrastructures in shopping centres and businesses throughout South Africa
Our aim is to consistently exceed our client’s expectations "We live by an ethos of integrity"
academy is supported and fed and students are ready to go out there into the industry so that they are ready to work as soon as they land rather than taking a year or so to get to grips with things. We also need to find a physical home. We are currently in Paarden Eiland and feel like it’s a bit of a concrete jungle so we want to create a campus that houses all the divisions - a nice leafy space that has space. That is important for us to find that home where staff can engage with nature and feel calm in the way that they can think about what we’re doing. It really is about space for us - ‘head’ space, ‘design’ space, and ‘people’ space. The person that we have brought in to head up TDC strategy we have also employed as a full-time life coach who works with our staff. That is very unique. Our staff are our most important assets. We want them to feel balanced. Our industry is about people and our clients and we want that to all run smoothly. “We have also developed a trust called The Green Room Trust and it is all about social
awareness, looking for sustainable materials and sustainable ideas. SA has really grabbed hold of green initiatives. Actually, Pick n Pay came to us a few years ago and we developed a green library that we extended to the retail market. We spent about a year with them working on how to reduce their carbon footprint throughout their stores.” The relaunch will take place gradually over the next 12 months. “The idea is to pull everything together as a 360-degree creative hub,” says Olivier. TDC is 20 next year. In that time it has weathered several economic downturns but has grown every time. Olivier attributes this trend to the company’s non-negotiables: integrity, honesty and never assuming that they are at the top of their game. “Through collaboration, we are always striving to be better than we are at present,” he concludes. END To learn more visit www.designcompany.co.za. www.southafricamag.com
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52 Marine Drive Paarden Eiland 7405 Cape Town South Africa Tel: +27 21 510 3912 Fax: +27 510 7166 Email: contact@designcompany.co.za
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