MScBA Master Thesis
In-house designers and design consultants together in joyful bliss?
Study on what factors lay behind when firms with in-house designers seek help from design consultants: How and why design consultants and firms with in-house designers work together.
By Odd Alvsåker Student number 1427547
(Supervisor: Dr. Mrs. Gerda Gemser and co-assessor Prof. Mr. Dany Jacobs)
University of Groningen
Specialisation program: Strategy and Innovation
Faculty of Management and Organization
Postbus 800, 9700 AV Groningen
Table of content
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION...4
CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND...6
2.1DESIGN...7
2.2MANAGEMENT OF DESIGN...10
2.3OUTSOURCING OF DESIGN...12
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...14
3.1QUALITATIVE VS. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH...14
3.2DATA COLLECTION...14
3.2.1 Auping ...19
3.2.2 Dorel Netherlands...20
3.2.3 NEA Push Braces ...20
3.2.4 Fabrique...21
3.2.5 GK Design Europe ...21
3.2.6 Springtime ...22
3.2.7 Waacs Design & Consultancy...22
3.3DATA ANALYSIS...22
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS...25
4.1MOTIVATION...25
4.1.1 Results from interviews ...25
4.1.2 Creative Reasons...26
4.1.3 Lack of skills ...27
4.1.4 Internal organisational conflicts...28
4.1.5 Lack of internal capacity...29
4.1.6 Name and reputation of design consultant...30
4.1.7 Design Consultant’s third party contacts...31
4.2PERCEPTION OF EFFECTIVE DESIGN...31
4.2.1 Results from interviews ...32
4.2.2 Design consultants’ perception of effective design ...32
4.2.3 In-house designers’ perception of effective design ...33
4.2.4 Differences in perception of effective design ...34
4.3DESIGN BRIEFS...35
4.3.1 Results from interviews ...35
4.3.2 Open or closed brief...36
4.3.3 Design briefs in terms of control and experience in design ...37
4.4WORKING RELATIONSHIPS...39
4.4.1 Results from interviews ...40
4.4.2 Long-term relationships ...41
4.4.3 Personal relationships ...42
4.4.4 Closeness of cooperation ...43
4.5CRITERIA’S FOR CHOOSING DESIGN CONSULTANTS...46
4.5.1 Result from interviews...46
4.5.2 Reasoning behind selection criteria’s ...47
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION...49
5.1PROPOSITIONS...49
5.2RECOMMENDATIONS...53
5.3LIMITATIONS...54
REFERENCES ...56
APPENDICES ...59
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS TO DESIGN CONSULTANTS...59 PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS TO IN-HOUSE DESIGNERS...60
Abstract
Why and how firms with in-house designers hire design consultants is a subject that yet has not been fully addressed by the scientific literature so far. This study uses qualitative data to identify the reasons for firms with in-house designers to hire design consultants and how they are working
together. Through face to face interview with design consultants and in-house designers the study shows that the two parties form close and long-term working relationships and that design consultants primarily help firms with in-house designers with creative and conceptual problems.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I have to thank my supervisor Dr. Mrs. Gerda Gemser for her constructive help and insights during the whole process of writing this master thesis. I also have to thank all of those who let me interview them for their openness and insights. Without them this master thesis would never had been written.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Product design is an important aspect of business strategy. Whether firms follow a strategy where cost price is important or a differentiation strategy, design can have a direct effect on their profit
margins and future performance. Competing solely on the basis of price, design of a product can help to reduce the cost price by facilitating the production process, making the product easier and cheaper to produce. In terms of differentiation strategy, design is a main vehicle of differentiation, or the physical manifestation of differentiation. Product design has to reflect what the producer argues is special about the product and the producer itself. Also in general, the physical appearance of a product affects buying behaviour, so businesses must have a conscious relation toward design.
To have a conscious relation to design implies that design and design processes have to be managed. Choices have to be made whether the firms should hire outside designers to do their design work or employ their own in-house designers. Then they have to decide how the designers should work with the rest of the organisation. Issues like how involved the designer should be in the different stages of product development and how closely knit should a design department be to other departments in the organisation have to be addressed. Also, firms have to define what design and what designer are supposed to do for them. Important work, since what the designer does can influence the firm’s bottom line. However, the two approaches to design have different requirements. In companies where there are in-house designers, management can use a very direct approach to deal with these challenges. But when contracting an outside industrial designer to help in the design process, the product development process is even more challenging since management of the subcontracting firm has to deal with someone from the outside. Management has to find a way to establish a proper channel of communication and build understanding between themselves and the design consultant as well as between the other departments in the firm and the design consultant. These relationships will be a key deciding factor for the success of the product and the product development process.
However, at times it occurs that firms with in-house designers hire design consultants to help them. This study will try to answer why firms with in-house designers hire design consultants and how they work together. My motivation for choosing this topic is that literature written about design is mostly about the designer and the process he/she goes through designing a product. Or it focuses upon the effectiveness of design and how to manage designers and the design process or about the design consultant and consultancy itself. But, there has been written very little about firms with in-house design capabilities hiring outside design help. It is likely that these kinds of firms face special challenges when contracting design services. On the one hand, they already have knowledge about design, which should make it easier for the firm and the design consultant
to communicate and understand each other. But at the same time this already existing knowledge may hinder and cause conflicts if it restricts the design consultant in achieving an efficient design to do his or her work. The in-house designers may feel sidelined and threatened by the design consultant, or the firm may have, because of the in-house designers, a set mindset of what design is and what they want from design, hindering the design consultant to get acceptance for his/hers ideas. I have therefore aimed at trying to find what motivates these firms to hire consultants, what kind of relationships these firms have with design consultants and what kind of problems and advantages are special for these relationships. By investigating these issues I will try to bring new insights to the already existing literature on design and help firms to achieve better design solutions when hiring design consultants.
In order to study this subject, I conducted a qualitative study where I interviewed 4 design consultancies and 3 firms with in-house designers face to face and over the phone. Design consultants were asked why they thought firms with in-house designers hired them and how they work with these firms. In-house designers were questioned why they hired design consultants and how they worked with design consultants. After a theoretical discussion of what design is, the management of design and the function of outsourcing of design, I discuss in detail the research methodology for this study. Then I analyse the data from the interviews before I draw some conclusions about the study, supplying 4 propositions and discuss the limitations of the study as well as giving some recommendations to both firms with in-house designers and design consultants.
Chapter 2 Theoretical background
In this chapter I will go through the main existing scientific literature about design, design management and outsourcing of design. First I will look into design in general trying to
understand important aspects of design. Thereafter, I will look into management practises when it comes to design before I study the phenomenon of outsourcing design activities. The aim of this section is to find what is already known and to find clues of what motivates firms with in-house designers to hire design consultants and how they work together.
2.1 Design
Most scholars seem to agree that industrial design is an important aspect of gaining a competitive advantage (Creusen & Schoormans 2005; Veryzer & Borja De Mozota 2005; Veryzer &
Hutchinson 1998; Page & Herr 2002; Kreuzenbauer & Malter 2005, Hekkert, Snelders &
Wieringen 2003, Gemser & Leenders 2001, Hertenstein, Platt & Veryzer 2005). This appears to be especially true in highly competitive industries where technology has matured (Hekkert, Snelders & Wieringen 2003). In these industries, and other industries as well, a product’s aesthetic elements are important in order to differentiate it, since aesthetic appearance of a product has a strong impact on consumers’ beliefs concerning the value of the product (Page and Herr 2002, Creusen & Schoormans 2005) including brand evaluations (Kreuzbauer & Malter 2005). Kreuzbauer and Malter (2005) further suggest that aesthetically appealing design leads to more positive brand evaluations and that design elements of products can be altered to influence brand categorization. Underpinning these ideas is the notion that a brand is a company’s set of values and beliefs of which the company needs to communicate to the consumer (Leonhardt 2001, Veryzer & Borja De Mozota 2005) and that the consumer has to be able to react emotionally to, in an either positive or negative fashion (Stumpff 2003, Veryzer & Borja De Mozota 2005). Product appearance communicates messages that a consumer associates with emotions such as for instance as being boring, expensive, friendly and that may give the consumer associations to time and place (e.g. the 70s), which may reinforce the brand image and/or brand identity (Creysen & Schoormans 2005, Veryzer & Borja De Mozota 2005).
In terms of whether a business actually gains from investing in industrial design, Gemser and Leenders (2001) investigated the relationship between a firm’s performance and level of the integration of industrial design in the product development process. They argue that the effect of investment on industrial design is dependent on industry life cycle and design strategy. In other words, in industries where there is little investment in industrial design a firm may benefit from investing in it, while in industries where there already are high investments in industrial design it
becomes a necessity to invest in innovative industrial design. They found empirical support showing that, in general, investing in innovative design is positively correlated to business performance. Hertenstein, Platt and Veryzer (2005) also did research about the relationship between industrial design and financial performance, and found a positive relationship between effective industrial design and corporate financial performance. Effective design in their view is a design that improves the ease of use and the aesthetic capabilities of the product, which differentiates it and increases the consumer’s perceived value of the product that can justify a higher selling price. This study will also use this definition of effective design. The research also revealed that firms with an effective industrial design compared to those that do not have an effective design, also have higher returns on sales, relatively higher returns on its assets and higher stock market returns. Implicitly that also implies that the firm has some kind of conscious design management policy.
The design process is a creative process since it involves creating new ideas and new concepts. It starts with a design brief that specifies what the customer wants and should be the result of meetings and discussion with marketing, production and engineering staff (Singer & Ritz 1995).
After being given a design brief, the industrial designer enters a rapid interactive phase where the designer has to come up with ideas and concepts (Lofthouse 2004). Sources for new ideas and concepts may initially come from tacit knowledge based on education and previous design projects, and are then used to generate more ideas through individual and group brainstorming sessions, ending up with sketches and mock-up models to assess technical feasibility and production methods (Lofthouse 2004). Research has shown that about 3000 ideas for products are needed to make 1 commercially successful product (Stevens, Burley & Divine 1999), which indicates how difficult this process is. The mock-ups are then usually used to get feedback from marketing, production and engineering on the ideas in terms of appropriateness of approaches and concepts, which then form the basis for the prototype (Lofthouse 2004, Singer & Ritz 1995). A good design therefore should ideally have a good balance between its attention drawing ability, aesthetic value, symbolic value (brand), ergonomic value, symbolic value and categorization ability (Creysen & Schoormans 2005) and the firm’s general strategy. See table 1 for details of these roles.
Since industrial design requires a creative and artistic process, it is also very different from other managerial processes that take place in a firm. Industrial design originates from the art and crafts movement that arose during the industrialization in England in the 19th century (Singer & Ritz 1995). Before the industrial revolution, craftsmen crafted most products and, as a result of making the product, they were also responsible for form and function. As the industrialization of the world spread and grew, traditional craftsmanship evolved into industrial art (Singer & Ritz 1995, Walsh 1996). This connection with the artistic creation is still present today, and studies show that the learning style of design students are closely matched to art-based students and differs significantly from other groups such as engineering and business students (Lofthouse 2004).
Beverland (2005) argues that designers have subcultural values that differ from business professions where approaches to problems are based on rational analysis and scientific rigor.
According to Lofthouse (2004) designers approach problems with an imaginative, intuitive and divergent thinking process that, unlike the structured business problem solving, can seem to be aimless and inwardly directed. It also argued that designers prefer individual expression, vitality and human elements in design compared to rational analysis that is “too” deterministic to them (Beverland 2005). But designers also often claim that they have a unique capability of combining knowledge from both art and engineering, which enables them to better address issues as
Table 1. The six roles of product appearance
Appearance role Influence on consumers Attention drawing Draw consumer attention
in-store
Categorization Influence ease of categorization Offer possibility for differentiation from product category
Functional Show features/functionalities Serve as cue for features/
functionalities
Serve as a cue for technical quality Ergonomic Show parts for consumer-product
interaction
Show consequences of use of overall appearance aspects Aesthetic Serve as a basis for aesthetic
appreciation
Fit well with home interior and other products owned
Symbolic Serve as a basis for symbolic product associations
Creusen & Schoormans 2005
ergonomics, use, ease of manufacturing and marketability (Beverland 2005, Walsh 1988). This capability leads designers to think that they are the ones that can project market preferences forward, while market research is about defining the present market preferences (Beverland 2005).
2.2 Management of design
As described above, these differences inevitably lead to conflicts between designers on the one hand and management on the other. The problem is that design often is in many ways partly connected with other functions of the business such as marketing, engineering and production, and at the same time is significantly different in thought processes and motivation. Currently there are two different approaches to this problem. One stream of researchers is arguing for integration of industrial design in all business functions (Beverland 2005), such as Walsh (1996), Veryzer (2005) and Veryzer and Borja De Mozota (2005). While some, mostly practitioners according to Beverland (2005), argue for a strict separation, shielding the industrial designers from the other business units (Beverland 2005). Integrating industrial design into the other business functions should result in more effective and better product developments, instead of being “applied” at a later stage in the product development (Veryzer & Borje De Mozota 2005).
Especially integrating marketing and industrial design is seen as important, to ensure that the design innovation delivers value that consumers are interested in and guiding the design towards the products’ and the firms’ brand position (Beverland 2005). But as Bangle1 (2001) points out, design is an artistic process, which may be disrupted by other business units’ demands. He argues that “Emotional, sensitive, often egocentric artists don’t respond to cold, rational arguments.”…”For designers to do their best work, they must be guided by their own sense of artistic quality, and they must be convinced that their superiors’ critiques make good sense”
(Bangle 2001 P: 49-50). He further argues that the designers therefore must be shielded from managements’ demands and sometimes too direct comments. Communication between the management and the industrial designers at BMW, therefore takes place via a mediator from the design department that can understand both parties and who helps the designers keep an eye on the bigger picture of matching design with quality and brand position (Bangle 2001). However, Bangle also admits that there has to be someone who keeps the designers on track so that they deliver consistent results on time (2001). Empirical research shows that design very often is not
1 Chris Bangle is Director of Design at BMW
integrated at all stages of product development, but rather “applied” at a later stage when firms’
start thinking about what the product should look like (Veryzer 2005). Or, design was viewed so narrowly that it was not at all important in the product development process (Walsh 1988 &
1996).
Nevertheless, when professional designers are involved in the product development process, a question arises of how much freedom the designer should be given and how much freedom affects creativity and costs. The design brief plays an important part in the design process itself as it supplies background information and specifies the requirements for the product design. A vague design brief gives the designer room to be creative but may also be inefficient, as it means that the designer has to define the problem before solving it and that the solution may not be useful as a result of an unfocused approach (Walsh 1988). A strict design brief restricts creativity, but allows the designer to focus creativity onto areas of product development where it is needed.
However, firms need to find the right balance considering that the designer may enrich the product design and product development process, or the designer may ignore the needs of the firm and the end-user in pursue of self-interest (Walsh 1996). It is also important to keep focus on the end-user, who is the most important focal point of design for both management and industrial designer (Walsh 1988, Veryzer 2005). But to be able to get an efficient design solution a basic element is good communication, which can be hampered since the firm is communication hub between the end-user and the designer.
Yet, simultaneously the designer is at the same time the link between management and the end consumer (Walsh 1996), see figure 7. This is a point worthwhile considering especially in the case of using outside industrial designer firms, since they may have a
skewed motivation of what constitutes an effective design, as their client is not the end consumer but the firm itself.
Communication and feedback loops in the product development
Firm End-user
Industrial designer Figure 1. Feedback loopes
2.3 Outsourcing of design
Another issue for this paper was why firms outsource the design to consultancies in the first place. According to Bruce and Morris (1998a) firms can follow three strategies in terms of design, namely a complete in-house strategy, outsourcing or a mixed strategy of the previous two.
The advantage of the first strategy is that the firm can easily control and influence the creative process, in the sense that the designers within the boundaries of the firm are well acquainted with the firm’s brand name and identity. Further, communication is more formalized; costs can be easily controlled and essential information stay within the boundaries of the firm. On the other hand, firms may lack the resources and knowledge to do the design work in-house and will therefore opt for the outsourcing option (Morris & Bruce 1998, Walsh 1996). By doing so, they can access new ideas and knowledge since they do not have design professionals in-house and relieve the internal workload. Outsourcing also makes it easier to abort unsuccessful projects as they deal with a third party that can be, if necessary, cut off. The mixed strategy, where a firm has internal design capabilities and at the same time hire outside help, is a more flexible strategy with the ultimate goal of trying to reap the benefits from the two former strategies.
Further, Gemser and Zee (2002) argue that clients are more likely to establish long-term relationships with design consultancies, when the design outcome has been successful in fulfilling their design needs. They found that well regarded firms tend to offer more than just the aesthetic elements to the product development, such as addressing the need of coherence between product and corporate identity and to increase the client’s knowledge of design and product development in general. Still, it appeared that some well-regarded design consultancies also were niche players able to outperform the full-line consultancies in their area they were specialized in. In addition, the successful well-regarded design consultancies were more inclined to establish long-term relationships with their clients and trying to be customer driven, delivering real value to the client.
And indeed, the less well-regarded firms were more focused on the product that they were delivering than the client itself, and as their skills were rather similar to their competitors they were more easily replaced. Bruce and Morris (1998a) also found similar trends in their study.
Long-term relationships were seen to increase familiarity, trust and security between the client and consultant improving continuity and stability, which should make the design outcome more effective. By establishing close long-term relationships, design consultants can be involved in the early steps of product development and play a more prominent strategic role and facilitate tacit knowledge between consultant and client. But short-term relationships were also perceived to
have benefits such as leaving selection and costs to the market forces. By relying on the market, the quality of the design and the efficiency of the designer could be more easily assessed since it was easier to change design consultant if there was a lack of organisational compatibility between the two parties.
The remaining question then is how and why firms with professional in-house design capabilities choose to work with industrial design consultancies. Unlike firms that have no in-house design capabilities these kinds of firms already have knowledge and skills in the field of design. Yet it is unclear what kind of relationships these firms are most likely to form. For instance, will they go into an arm’s length short-term relationship trying to relieve their own workload and filling gaps in their own knowledge base, or do they see a real benefit in having a long-term design partner?
There are some factors according to Bruce and Morris (1994) that have a positive effect on the relationship from the designer’s point of view such as comprehensive design brief, sufficient information and client evaluation of the design. Other important factors were that the client had an understanding of what a designer does and that the client possesses visual skills and design management skills. But according to the same study other factors could also affect the relationship negatively. Withholding information, becoming too involved and trying to take over the design work were mentioned as the main negative factors affecting the relationship. It is interesting to see that firms with in-house design capabilities easily could fit with both the positive and negative factors. One hand, they should, since they should have a good understanding of what the designer does, be able to give a good design brief and properly evaluate the design consultant’s work, which in theory should increase the chances of a long-term relationship. But on the other hand, they might not be willing to give away too much information fearing that that information will be spread to other firms. The firm’s company culture may also stand in the way of the consultants work as they “know” what design is, how it should be done and try control the consultant. It is therefore unclear what kind of relationships that is most likely to appear between firms with professional in-house design capabilities and design consultancies, since they one the on hand could establish close long-term relationships but at same time have very good reasons for choosing the short-term arm’s length type of relationship as well.
Chapter 3 Research methodology
Choosing the right research methodology is vital for a study. This section deals with the choice of research methodology for this paper in terms of what kind of study it is, how and which informants were needed and how the collected data was analysed.
3.1 Qualitative vs. quantitative research
This study is an explorative study. Since there has not been conducted research about the relationships between firms with in-house design capabilities and design consultancies the results that could be expected from the study were unclear. And as Burgelman (1983) argued, qualitative data gives better insight into undocumented phenomena’s and is well suited for explorative studies trying to generate a descriptive model of the phenomena; so this study had to be based on qualitative data. Furthermore, the data that was collected were mostly unsuitable for quantitative forms of analysis and therefore completely dependent on the researcher’s own interpretation and generalization of the data. The data was collected so that patterns emerged while using the theoretical background on design as a backbone for the rather rough framework. The conceptual framework, built on the theoretical background, for the thesis was continuously revisited and revised in the research process as the researcher gained more insight into the field.
3.2 Data collection
One of the ways of collecting data for qualitative studies is actively using field methods like interviews. Snow and Thomas (1994) argue that field methods for organisational research can much more realistically investigate strategic processes and outcomes than any other methods.
Since fieldwork involves real managers and organizations, it gives the researcher an opportunity to see strategies in organizations in their natural setting, which is far more realistic and uncontrolled than making laboratory experiments when exploring new issues at hand.
Interviewing offers other possibilities and problems. By conducting an interview the researcher is asking a person who has information about the phenomenon that the researcher is unable to observe him or herself. This means that the researcher has to ask the interviewees about themselves, attitudes and actions of others, past events that may have occurred or to foresee future
events. The interview may be conducted through open-ended or structured interviews. With open- ended questions the researcher lets the interviewee answer freely and also bring up other issues and points in addition to what the researcher already has prepared. Other forms such as combined open-ended and structured interviews can also be used, as well as unscheduled interviews over multiple time periods and telephone interviewing. Since interviewing also involves less contact and interaction with the situation, it is easier to stay objective. But interviews rely on the opinions, perspectives and experiences of the respondents/informants, which all are subjective.
Snow and Thomas (1994) argue that multi-methods studies can be a way of improving the results from a study. A multi-method study will consist of two or more field methods and can be compared to triangulation, a combination of methods used to study a phenomenon (Snow &
Thomas 1994). Basically, by applying triangulation or using multi-methods the researcher is to be sure that observed variances between the subjects studied are the products of the attributes of the subject and not attributes of the method itself.
For this study data was collected from interviews with design consultancies and firms with professional in-house design capabilities. By interviewing both the consultancies and the firms with professional in-house design capabilities, the study got two points of references to the same issue that is at hand. Furthermore, interviews were chosen as the mean of collecting data, because interviews give data that is highly realistic data, unlike constructed simulations that give highly artificial data (Hair, Babin, Money & Samouel 2003). The interview method was also chosen because I could not observe the phenomenon that was going to be studied, while the informants on the other hand are dealing with it on a daily basis. The interviews themselves were semi- structured with open ended questions, allowing the informant being interviewed to freely answer the questions and adding his or her own observations and insights. However, the author prepared questions that would guide the informant into the fields of interest to the author. By adapting this technique I made sure that the data that was acquired was useful for the study, but at the same time being aware of that the informants could add new ideas and insights. The questions were based on the theoretical background in the areas in which I earlier had identified as areas where I needed data. The goal of the questions was to verify or disprove my own expectations and perceptions of the possible results and conclusion from the study. Two sets of questions were made, one for the design consultancies and one for the firms with in-house designers. And even while the two sets of questions were specifically adjusted to each target group great care was taken of that they would address the same issues to ensure triangulation. Further, all the
informants in their respective group were asked basically the same questions with a clear structure of the interview in terms of the themes. The reason for the questions at times being phrased differently stems from the fact that I also had to adjust to what the informants had said previously in the interview and that an aim of the interviews was to have some kind of discussion of the issues at hand. Of course in addition, my supervisor gave me feedback on the questions, which resulted in the question being altered and adjusted several times before the process of interviewing started.
Furthermore, I felt that the best way of conducting the interviews was to go to the informants’
location and do the interviews face to face. By using face to face interviews I had the advantage of observing the non-verbal communication of the informants, which at times was helpful. I also hoped that my presence helped the informants to open up more than through other forms of impersonal questioning, since face to face interviews by their nature are more involving on a personal basis. A third advantage from my point of view was that face to face interviews were much less constrained in time then the other most likely alternative; phone interviews. With phone interviews there is a clear time limit for how long it is effective to talk to each before the interview becomes unproductive. This time limit is at least in my mind shorter than it is for face to face interviews. However, as it turned out I also did one interview over the phone. But this was more coincidental than planned, as one of the informants was not able to meet me face to face. In the end I chose to conduct this one phone interview to enrich the dataset. During the phone interview and all the face to face interviews accurate notes were taken of the interview. Face to face interviews were also recorded on a tape recorder and later transcribed as accurately as possible. This gave me the opportunity to later use quotes and compare the transcripts towards my own notes taken during the interviews. In one incident the notes turn out to be especially helpful as one of the tapes snapped during transcribing.
Further, picking the right persons to interview was vital to access usable qualitative data. As informants are people that are supposed to have special and extended knowledge of the field being researched and to be willing to talk about it (Kumar, Stern & Anderson 1994), I chose to look at the design consultancies first. By using BNO’s2 annual yearbooks of Dutch Design from 2003, I compiled a list over design consultancies that could be interesting to interview. Common
2 BNO, also known as the Association of Dutch Designers, is a branch organisation for designers and design firms in the Netherlands. BNO aims at being the representative body for designers and design firms as well as to develop and expand the discipline of design. Around 2400 individual designers and 200 design firms are represented by BNO.
for all of the possible candidates were that they had a portfolio with many different types of clients and that they could perform multidisciplinary design tasks. This approach appeared to be the best way to locate experienced design consultancies that also had clients with in-house designers. Another important issue was to concentrate on design consultancies in the Netherlands to avoid that that there were cultural differences that could skew the data and to keep the travelling within a reasonable geographical distance. Table 2 shows the design consultancies that were contacted for interviews.
Finding firms with in-house design, however, was much more challenging because there are no sources of information or databases where relevant information could be found. The only firm that I knew myself that had in-house designers was Philips, but they declined to take part of the study. I therefore relied on the design consultants to help me to find firms with in-house designers. And by asking the design consultants whether they knew of possible firms that I could approach, I came in contact with the majority of firms with in-house designers that I approached for interviews. Nevertheless, I approached one firm with in-house designers after one of the interviewed in-house designers recommended me to contact this particular firm. One firm with in- house designers initially agreed to be interviewed, but it turned out to be impossible to find an actual date for the interview to take place without causing a serious delay to the study. At this point I had also run out of more firms with in-house designers to contact, so because of the time restraint I settled for a sample containing three firms with in-house designers. See table 3 for firms with in-house designers that were approached for interviews.
Consultancy Location Agreed to interview
Ejok Rotterdam
Fabrique Delft Yes
First Design Enschede
Flex Development Delft
Smool Design Rotterdam
GK Design Europe Amsterdam Yes
Indes Industrial Design & Engineering Hengelo Loft Group Dekker & Spiekerman Wormer
NPK Industrial Design Leiden
Spark Design Engineering Ridderkerk
Springtime Amsterdam Yes
Waacs Design & Consultancy Rotterdam Yes
Well design Zeist
n = 13 4
Response rate 31%
Table 2. Overview over approached design consultancies
As a consequence of what is described above, I chose to conduct the study with three firms with in-designers and four design consultancies. The main reason was that I, after having interviewed the informants, found mostly similar data and interviewing more informants would probably only reveal more data of the same character. The second reason was the time constraint, as I had to finish the research within a reasonable amount of time. Further, as the process of finding informants was and ongoing process before and in between interviewing, so the decision concerning numbers of informants could be taken quite comfortably as it was unlikely to find new important data.
Finding the right informants was vital for the study. The informants had to have knowledge about management of creative people, design consultancy and the value and function of design in general. Another issue that had to be highlighted was to try to find out whether and how the informant may be biased. It is likely that informants from the design consultancy are more biased towards the design consultancy and informants from the firms with in-house designers are biased towards the firm. This is of course one of the reasons why they are being interviewed, to see the phenomena from different perspectives, but there was a risk of answers being motivated by defensive motives or that the informant would try to impress the interviewer. On this basis, I looked for experienced design consultants that were and had been over a long period in close contact with the clients. The result was four experienced designers acting as informants from the design consultancies. In terms of the firms with in-house designers I specifically asked to interview personnel that had long experience with design and product development as well as hiring design consultants. Two out of three informants were therefore designers themselves in a position where they also were managing other in-house designers, whereas the last informant was the R&D manager in the firm. All were had experience with hiring design consultants. Table 4
Firm Location Agreed to interview
Philips Eindhoven
KPN Delft
Dorel Netherlands Helmond Yes
Auping Deventer Yes
NEA Push Braces Maastricht Yes
Zwartwoud Hoogkerk
n = 6 3
Response rate 50%
Table 3. Overview over approached firms with in-house design
shows the informants that agreed to be interviewed, from which and what kind of firm they are from as well as the informants’ formal position in the firm.
Firm Contact person Position Type of informant
Auping Thom Verheggen Manager Product Design Firm with in-house designers 1 Dorel Netherlands Adriaan Siewertsen Manager Product Development Firm with in-house designers 2 NEA Push Braces Annette Voskuilen R&D manager Firm with in-house designers 3 Fabrique Jeroen van Erp Partner & Managing Director Design consultancy 1
GK Design Europe Itsuro Shibata Project Manager Design consultancy 2
Springtime John Kock Partner & Managing Director Design consultancy 3 WAACS Design & Consultancy Marcel Jansen Partner & Managing Director Design consultancy 4
Table 4. Overview of participating informants
In the following sections background information of the firms and design consultancies participating in the study can be found.
3.2.1 Auping
Auping develops, produces and sells beds and bed related products such as mattresses, sheets, duvet covers and pillow covers. They are aiming at the higher end of the market focusing on comfort for the user of their beds, which also can include accessories such as telephones, screens, lamps etc. Auping has an innovative past and are today still innovative. Auping’s founder invented the spring mattress over 100 years ago. Today the innovations are more a mix between technical and non-technical innovations. On the one hand, continuous research is conducted to improve the technical side of bed frames and mattresses such as, apart from pure “bed”
technology, adding telephones, lamps and TVs. On the other hand, Auping has a range of non- technical innovations on their conscience. For instance, Auping designs every aspect of a bed from the bed frame, the mattress to the sheet and duvet cover. All of these aspects have a unique design language given by Auping that has become one of Auping’s trademarks. Further, Auping has subsidiaries in Belgium/Luxembourg, Germany, Spain and Denmark, and importers in Brazil, Argentina, Curacao, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Surinam and Taiwan.
Through this network Auping has sales for around 70 million euros a year and employs around 450 employees in total, where 2 are in-house designers.
3.2.2 Dorel Netherlands
Dorel Neteherlands is a part of Dorel Industries with headquarter in Canada. Dorel industries produce branded consumer goods in four segments. In the Juvenile products segment Dorel Industries offers mainly child strollers and car seats for children, in the home furnishing segment Dorel offers metal folding furniture, futons, step stools and ladders and ready to assemble furniture such as desks and closets and in the recreational segment Dorel offers bicycles and bicycle accessories. Dorel Industries sold products for around 1.7 billions US dollars in 2004.
Dorel Netherlands employs about 170 people, whereof 2 are in-house designers, and develops and produces child strollers and car seats for children under the brand names of Maxi-Cosi and Quinny. Dorel Netherlands further sells other child strollers, car seats and other baby related products from under brand names from within Dorel Industries. Maxi-Cosi is a leading European brand for children car seats. A lot of the innovations in Dorel’s industry are of a technical nature.
Improving the safety of child strollers and car seats for children involve a lot of technical improvements of materials and the strength of the construction of products. But, as there are rigorous safety standards, consumers generally feel safe to assume that these products are within a basic safety level and therefore generally compare these products on an equal level. Dorel therefore also spends time on non-technical innovations to gain a competitive advantage. Issues such as styling and user-interface issues are very important to Dorel and may explain why Maxi- Cosi has stayed a market leader for quite some time.
3.2.3 NEA Push Braces
NEA Push Braces is a relatively small Dutch company that has been developing, producing and selling joint supporters for medical and sports use for over 20 years. In 2004 NEA’s new push brace product line won the rather prestigious Dutch Design Award, which had been designed in cooperation with Waac’s Design & Consultancy. NEA’s products are distributed to most of Europe and the Dutch Antilles. By focusing on design NEA believes that the products will appeal to more than just the medical market. In the sports market, unlike the medical market, customers can freely choose what products they want to buy and use. On the other hand, in the medical market it is the doctor or the insurance company who also influence what products the patient will use and they are mostly focused on price. Therefore by focusing on the design of the products, NEA feels that their products have a competitive edge compared to their nearest competitors that are less focused on issues as aesthetics and ergonomics. NEA employs two designers that that are
specialists on the functionality of the joint supporters. However, until recently they were responsible for all the design related issues in NEA. So until recently NEA was a rather technically oriented firm as most of their competitors in the industry were as well. However, lately NEA has realised how much non-technical innovation can influence competitive advantages that they have had a shift in the organisation towards non-technological innovations.
Issues like styling and user friendliness and general attractiveness of the products are now taken very seriously by the firm and given a lot of attention.
3.2.4 Fabrique
Fabrique is a relatively big Dutch design consultancy employing around 70 people. They can offer advice on most field of design but are also aiming to help the clients on a strategic level. To achieve this, the clients work with teams that have designers from many of the different disciplines of design. After being established over ten years ago Fabrique has worked for companies such as: NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), Albert Hein and Orange. The informant from Fabrique was the only informant interviewed over the phone.
3.2.5 GK Design Europe
GK Design Europe is a subsidiary of the Japanese GK Design Group. GK Design Group was established in 1953 to mainly design motorcycles for Yamaha. Until Yamaha bought their own design studio, GK Design designed all of Yamaha’s motorcycle. Now they mainly design heavy motorcycles for Yamaha and occasionally scooters with big engines. However, GK Design works for many other clients such as Pioneer and Asics and is currently employing over 200 designers in Japan, USA, China and Europe. GK Design Europe was established in 1986 to get closer to European trends in design. In the Amsterdam office there are working both Japanese and European designers to be able to help Japanese firms getting a European perspective. GK Design also believes in offering strategic help, market and trend research as well as offering concept development to actual scale modelling.
3.2.6 Springtime
Springtime was founded in 1995 and employs 25 persons in Amsterdam. Springtime also has studios in New York and Taiwan. Furthermore, Springtime is also a commercially oriented design studio that apart from designing also offers clients strategic counselling through multidisciplinary teams. Among Springtime’s clients we find companies like Microsoft, Volkswagen, Heineken and Sachs.
3.2.7 Waacs Design & Consultancy
Waacs is a small but quite well known design studio employing 7 persons. Waacs is a twofold winner of the Dutch Design Award. They won the award in 2003 with the Philips Senseo coffee machine for Philips and Sara Lee and in 2004 with the joint supporters for NEA. As with the other design consultancies in this study Waacs is also a commercially oriented design studio that offers strategic advice to the clients. In Waacs portfolio we find companies such as Microsoft, Alessi, Philips and Friesche Flag.
3.3 Data analysis
To be able to analyze the data, I tried to reduce the data from the interviews by categorising it and coding it into classes so it was possible for the data to be translated into concepts and identifiable patterns. As Miles (1979) pointed out that data reduction is the first line of analysis by refining the data so that it can be used to revise conceptual frameworks and be used in the final conclusions. By categorizing the data it became easier to generate a more common language of concepts that was used to revise the conceptual framework on a whole. Further, a more informal method was applied by regularly letting the supervisor read the progresses that was made. That helped to challenge concepts and hypotheses created, and resulted in better insight concerning the phenomena being studied.
Main group Sub-groups Motivation
Creative reasons Lack of skills
internal problems for subcontractor Lack of internal capacity
Lack of internal funding
Name of designer (signature design) Consultants' third party contacts
Main group Sub-groups
Perception of design
Effective design is:
Increased profits Promote studio portfolio
Good mix of all elements of design
Found differences in perception of design
Main group Sub-groups
Design briefs
Reasons for open brief:
Conceptual design Reasons for closed brief:
Internal problems Costs and time
Designer breaking brief borders
Consultants prefer design briefs from:
Internal designer
Experienced firms with design without desingers Firms without design experience
Found similarities in design briefs between:
Internal designer and firms without designers
Did not find similarities in design briefs between:
Internal designer and firms without designers
Main group Sub-groups
Working relationship
Long-term
Personal relationship
Reasons for long-term:
Learn about each other Easier for future projects
Reasons for personal relationship:
Share common vision/goal Better cooperation
Better understanding of each other Mutual respect
Trust
Communication
Closeness of cooperation:
Close Distant
Closeness with other departments:
Close Distant Table 5. Data categorisation
So after some consideration I decided to categorise data into four main groups, namely data in relation to firms with in-house designer motivation to hire design consultants, the perception of what effective design and design solutions, design briefs from firms with in-house designers to design consultants and finally the working relationships. After the interviews I looked closer at each data group again and divided them further into sub-groups which can be seen in table 5. By doing this the data became easier to handle and analyse.
After the data was categorised and coded into classes, it was scrutinized to look for similarities and differences between the two groups of informants. By comparing the answer from the informants I could find emerging patterns in the different data groups that gave me enough insight to draw conclusion, build propositions and come with recommendations. An important issue when analysing the data was to be aware of that after issues had been addressed in the interviews and all parties participating had mentioned it then it was clearly an important issue for all participants. However, if an issue had only been mentioned by one participant, it did not necessarily imply that it was of no importance to the other participants. It simply reflected the difficulty of categorising qualitative data, trying to be somewhere in the middle of wide and too detailed generalisation. Furthermore, all the informants from firms with in-house designers were asked for their selection criteria’s for selecting design consultants were. The informants stood free to answer what they found to be their criteria’s for selecting a design consultant. This approach was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to find firms with in-house designers criteria’s for choosing a design consultant and not what I myself perceived that they would be. And secondly having already defined criteria’s then also would call for a ranking of the criteria’s, which seemed a bit ambitious considering that there were just three informants.
Also recording the interviews proved to be very helpful as it enabled me to use direct quotes. All the interviews was transcribed as accurate as possible from the recorded interviews and helped keeping the data as close as possible to what was actually said during the interviews. Of course, these precise transcripts help me to avoid oversimplifying and fall victim to my own biases when analysing the data since I had the original material to guide me. Also the opportunity to use direct quotes greatly improved the quality and interpretation of the data.
Chapter 4 Results and analysis
In this chapter I will analyse and comment on the results from the interviews. However, from a general point of view, it is important to grasp the notion of in-house designers as specialists and design consultants as generalists. This relation between in-house designers and design consultants was mentioned and confirmed by many of the interviewed informants. Whereas the in-house designer works with same type of products for the same markets on a daily basis, design consultants work with different product groups for different markets for different companies.
Because of this the in-house designer increases his or her knowledge about a specific product group, market and the company. The design consultant acquires knowledge and experience from a broad range of product groups, market places and firms. This relation has the effect that in- house designers tend be better at detailing, which requires specific and detailed knowledge and experience of pervious products, the market place and the industry, while design consultants drawing on a wide scope of previous experiences and broad knowledge base, tend to be better at creating more conceptual design and design solutions.
In the following sections I will try to shed more light upon why in-house designers and design consultants work together and how they work together.
4.1 Motivation
There are all together many aspects that motivate firms with in-house design to hire design consultants. Based on the interviews I have categorized them into seven groups of different forms of motives for hiring design consultants. These groups are therefore derived from what the design consultants felt were the reasons, what the in-house designers felt were the reasons or what both groups jointly felt were the reasons.
4.1.1 Results from interviews
The main reason for firms with in-house designers to hire design consultants according to both were a lack of creativity in-house and lack of certain specific skills. In fact everybody that was interviewed agreed that these were the main reasons. With creative reasons it is meant reasons that involved a new insight, fresh ideas and new concepts. The lack of certain skills addressed the
need for the firms to use consultants that had experiences in special fields of design, products, technology, materials and markets that they did not possess themselves. All four design consultants had experienced that an internal conflicts within the subcontractor’s organisation had been the reason for why the firm had hired them. Unsurprisingly, no firms with in-house designers had found conflicts internally to be a reason for hiring outside design help. Firms with designers also stressed that capacity issues within the design department at times forced them to hire consultants, which also was recognized by most consultants. This was also connected to limited budgets within the firms and one firm argued that because of its budget situation had to hire design consultants, a situation which also was mentioned by one design consultant. The name of the designer or signature name was mentioned by one firm and one design consultant as being a reason to hire a design consultant. This implies that the firm hires a designer with a famous name to attach to a product or product line. Further, two firms found that the design consultant’s third party contacts also was important when hiring a design consultant, an issue that was addressed by one design consultant as well. These third party contacts were mainly linked to the design consultant’s contacts with suppliers of raw materials and manufacturers of components and other products. The results can be seen in table 6.
4.1.2 Creative Reasons
“You start thinking from your own experiences and in your own context and at a certain point this context becomes too narrow and you need a fresh outside view.” Design consultancy 3 (according to interview)
From the results it is clear that many firms with in-house designers run into creative problems.
Since in-house designers mainly are working on the same products within the same context every day, it is easy to develop tunnel vision at some point. In order to break out of what may be a very vicious circle; firms with in-house designers hire design-consultants to get an inflow of new ideas. It is also interesting for firms with in-house design to have different approaches to their
Motivation
Creative reasons 4 100% 3 100% 7 100%
Lack of skills 4 100% 3 100% 7 100%
Internal problems for subcontractor 4 100% 0 0% 4 57%
Lack of internal capacity 3 75% 3 100% 6 86%
Lack of internal funding 1 25% 1 33% 2 29%
Name of designer 1 25% 1 33% 2 29%
Consultants' contacts 1 25% 2 67% 3 43%
design consultant subcontractor total
Table 6. Responses on motivation
problems as well as completely different perspectives of what design and design solutions should contain. But in order to access these new and fresh ideas, approaches and perspectives it is necessary for the firm to go outside the boundaries of the firm to draw upon others’ experiences and knowledge. Ironically, it is also sometimes the design consultant’s lack of specific knowledge of the firm, product and market place that also gives him or her a creative edge. By not knowing every aspect of the firm, product and the market place, the design consultant is in a much better position to rethink the perceived basic ideas in an industry, not to be bounded by the traditional view and in that way be more capable of coming up with a truly new and innovative idea and design. In addition to that, design consultants are also used to come up with out of the box ideas, since this is very often what they are hired to do. As the informant from design consultancy 4 put it; “We don’t carry this load of knowledge. For us it’s easier to think out of the box, then we have the chance to think out of the box but still being useful.” (according to interview)
4.1.3 Lack of skills
“Sometimes when we want something different or technically new, the knowledge of the industry and the knowledge of the market are less important, you hire them (design consultants) because of their technical knowledge…” Firm with in-house designers 1 (according to interview)
In-house designers find themselves at times facing projects where they do not possess all the necessary skills to begin or finish a project. These may be skills connected to many different areas of expertise, such as knowledge and experience of special technical solutions or materials. But it may also be in the case where the firm with in-house designers is venturing into new markets or are introducing new types of products, where the skills and experience that the design consultant has accumulated over the years from different markets and products types benefits the firm.
Nevertheless, whether the firm with in-house designers lacks skills in certain commercial or technical areas, it is a result of that the in-house designer works in a limited field of design for a continuous period, mainly focused on the firm’s products and target markets. So to address the issues of lack of skills, they draw upon external forces with wider technical know-how and commercial experience.
4.1.4 Internal organisational conflicts
“… they (the management) simply aren’t satisfied with the in-house design.”
Design consultancy 2 (according to interview)
“For us it’s easy to explain why we got rid of some restrictions and why we ignored some parts of the briefing. We can do that because we have authority, whereas internal designers sometimes can’t.” Design consultancy 4 (according to interview)
That no firms with in-house design revealed internal organisational problems as a reason for hiring design consultants, was not really very surprising. Admitting to internal problems to an unknown outsider could not really be expected. Therefore, that only the design consultancies found internal organisational problems a valid reason does not mean that the result is weak, but is rather an indication of how difficult it can be to admit that there is an internal problem. However, it may also be, of course, that the interviewed firms in fact did not have any of these types of problems.
Nevertheless, internal organisational problems take place in mainly two types of disputes. First, there are situations where the management of the firms with in-house designers is unhappy and unsatisfied with the quality of the in-house design or the way the in-house designers work. This is exemplified by the informant from design consultancy 3: “…a company asked us to get things in place in their design department they have inside, they (the in-house designers) were acting more as consultants than designers.” (according to interview) In these situations design consultants find themselves trying to both improving on the design but also acting as an organisational consultant as well. Very often it will not be enough to only fix the design problems, but advice also have to be directed at how the design department works and communicates with the management and vice versa. Also, these kinds of assignment will often by their very nature involve a fair amount of toe stepping on the behalf of the design consultant on the part of both management and design department, but they will also have to act as mediators in between the two parts. In other words, in these situations it is vital to find the right balance to reach a successful end result.
The second scenario is in a sense the inverse of the first scenario. In this situation design consultants found that it was the in-house designers that could not convince the management of
their own ideas and concepts. So instead of giving in to their frustrations, the in-house designers hired design consultants to argue their case to the management. But this may lead to further problems as most designers, including design consultants, prefer to put their own stamp onto a project. So the in-house designer has a choice of either instructing the design consultant directly or working together with the design consultant to create a mutual project: “The designer has some nice ideas but under the conditions the designer cannot realize their image. But by hiring an outside designer they can realize that image through the out-side consultant. In some cases they will use us as an interpreter of their image and view, and sometimes the views of the outside consultant are easier to accept to the management.” Design consultancy 2 (according to interview). However, whether it is in the case of directing or cooperating, the fact remains that the management of many firms at times find it easier to accept outsiders’ claims than their own staff telling them the same.
4.1.5 Lack of internal capacity
“Sometimes they (firms with in-house designers) are too busy. Just simply too busy! So they ask an outsider for help. That kind of thing is for the outside consultancy not very interesting. But that will produce money, so we’ll take it.” Design consultancy 2 (according to interview)
“From time to time we have large projects, not always, and that is when we have to expand our capacity in just the amount of people. (…) So we can be quicker. And we have to force them (design consultants) to develop products when we need them.” Firm with in-house designers 1 (according to interview)
An issue that is of great importance to firms with in-house design is the lack of internal capacity in the design department to handle an uneven workload. As the annual numbers of projects go up and down, firms find that they need to get additional help. This is an occurrence that is much more common and likely in smaller firms than in big multi-national companies that have vast resources to draw from. Nevertheless, lack of internal capacity represents quite a lot of work for the design consultants.
Further, there are mainly two ways these types of projects may be worked on. The first way, which design consultants do not prefer, is rather standardized work where the design consultant is filling a gap within the organization. However, as design consultants are normally better at
conceptual work, it is more likely that they will be given more responsibility within the project. If they are not, it is quite likely that they will take that freedom anyway, in an attempt to turn the project into their own project.
The main reason for the firms to keep on hiring design consultants instead of employing more in- house designers is a matter of flexibility. It would not be cost effective to hire staff that can not be fully utilised. So from this point of view it is not viable to hire more staff due to the short-term nature of the demand but better to access these skills when they are needed. This approach gives firms with limited resources economic flexibility and, as a side effect, it also gives the firms a skills related flexibility. Skills may therefore be easily be drawn upon when they are needed and do not have to be embedded in the organisation. Hiring design consultants is therefore interesting for firms with in-house designers both in the short-term and long-term. In short-term they can access skills that they are lacking at a certain moment in time, while in long-term they do not have to hire more in-house designers that they will be unable to fully utilise over a longer period of time.
4.1.6 Name and reputation of design consultant
“… sometimes it helps to add a famous name to a product.” Firm with in-house designers 1 (according to interview)
Another motivation behind hiring design consultants is to be able to give products and products line increased perceived value. By selling products designed by signature designers, such designers as for instance Mark Lawson, firms may demand an extra premium for these products and product lines, since consumers find these kinds of products more exclusive than the other products and product lines the firm can offer. However, this relationship is predominantly only a issue in certain industries. For a firm to invest in designer names, the design and the lifecycle of the products and product lines should be quite long lived to reap benefits from the investment in a signature name.
Nevertheless, an extension of this is that firms with in-house design at times also hire design consultants when they are planning to expand abroad. By doing this they may adapt the local taste and gain acceptance by the local population for the design since the design consultant’s name is widely recognized in the region.
