Trends, according to the Joziasse, that caused the design to go beyond mere aesthetics and/or decoration in becoming a source for gaining sustainable competitive advantage was supposed to be:design as a core competency;integration of design into the business world;design management and planning as a focus for consultancies;the merging of business and design education.The consequence was that some prospective corporations have developed design as a continuous element of corporate strategy.  And out of that is the claim that sustained design strategy allows companies to take leadership positions in their sectors.Sources:Joziasse, Frans. Corporate Strategy: Bringing Design Management into the Fold in Lockwood Th. & Walton Th. (eds). 2008. Building Design Strategy: Using Design to Achieve Key Business Objectives. DMI & Allworth Press, 257 p.Lockwood, Thomas. Design Value: A Framework for Measurment in Lockwood Th. & Walton Th....

16 January, 2010 /

There are decades of investments in helping corporations throughout the world to develop a sustainable corporate and/or business strategy.In modern times many authors, among them Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad, and Gary Johnson and Kevan Scholes suggest that defining core competencies is the only way to ensure continuing success under changing conditions. What is therefore the classical approach to strategy development?There are two methodological approaches or ways to develop a corporate and/or business strategy:rigorous formal approaches include game theory, decision trees, opportunity portfolios, real options, scenarios, simulations and other numerous variations;less rigorous possibilities include rapid analysis frameworks (such as SWOT), scorecards and weighing systems, and evaluation processes (such as Stage-Gate).Both approaches have support onthe one hand in the rigorous mathematical theory; and onthe other hand in the less rigorous but equally...

16 January, 2010 /

How to connect the strategy, design strategy and design management?Simply focusing on design and trying to connect it with the strategy is not supposed to create good results. There was a model developed to show that companies are to focus on design management rather than simply on the use of design. In the model, called Design Management Staircase there is a range presented from the immature level of design management to a level where design management is of strategic nature and part of the company’s culture (Kootstra, 2009, p. 12) and therefore part of corporate identity. The model is presented in the Figure below. /*! elementor - v3.5.5 - 03-02-2022 */ .elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=".svg"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block} At highly driven design companies they have a differentiation strategy where design is at their core. Those kinds of companies are market...

22 December, 2009 /

The design manager should be able to manage:design people,design budgets,design timetables,design work,design organizations. It is obvious that it is a wide range of complex skills, especially if we consider that design managers are often supposed to be the design leaders too.A design leadership requires on the other hand six basic skills:envisioning the future,manifesting strategic intent,directing design investment,managing corporate reputation,nurturing the environment for innovation,training for design leadership (Turner in MacDonald (ed), 2004, p. 14). Source: MacDonald, Stuart (ed). 2004. Design Issues in Europe Today. The Bureau of European Design Associations – BEDA, 58 p....

04 December, 2009 /

Design management practitioners’ are, among others also: design department managers, brand managers, creative directors, design directors, heads of design, design strategists, and design researchers, as well as managers and executives responsible for making decisions about how design is used in the organization. This rather broad scope of work can be focused if we look at design and management to: + design direction, + design realisation; and not least + design coaching....

28 November, 2009 /

There is a general opinion—not only in the design community—that non designers make design decisions every day. Designers do tend to see this as an attack to their profession. And while the mutual suspicions between managers and creative teams exists, there is a possibility to find a suitable management concept for every design concept....

21 November, 2009 /

The process of portfolio management has developed from Boston Consulting Group matrix of “Stars, Cows, Children and Dogs” and is a continuous activity (Davidson, 2002, p. 29). Branding authors have developed their own system of Strategic Brand, Linchpin brand, Silver Bullet, and Cash Cow Brands (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2000, p. 136).There is the possibility that a brand is simultaneously a linchpin and a silver-bullet brand, or it could evolve from a strategic brand into a cash cow brand. The strategic brand is supposed to be the one that represents a meaningful future level of sales and profits. Linchpin is supposed to be a leverage point of a major business area or of a future vision of the firm. A silver bullet is a brand or subbrand that positively influences the image of another brand (IBM...

14 November, 2009 /