Feed on
Posts
Comments


Asian Companies able to Embrace design as a business strategy? (Part 1)

July 9th, 2006 by Design Translator

Can Asian countries make better brands in the future? Our resident contributor, Brian Ling aka Design Translator, attempts to answer the question with the need to adopt design as a business strategy for Asian companies. Here is the first of the two-part series.

It’s this time of year where companies who sell products worry about what they are going to sell this Christmas. The company I work for is no exception. Projects in-progress get a swift kick in the behind, furthermore we all start scraping concepts together to prototype and show. Not the most ideal situation but at least things are happening and every year I am reminded how Santa must feel like.

As I am knee deep in design and designer management, the issue of “do companies in Asia truly understanding and embrace the value of design as a business strategy?” keeps on popping up in my mind’s eye. It’s in such a time when the truly skilled design manager can navigate the stormy waters of product development and still keep a balance between design intent and business economics.

I’m no expert in this design management thing, but after my recent in-depth discussion with the “head” of the BMW DesignworksUSA Singapore studio, I must admit that its nice to be validated by an industry expert that some of what I’m doing with this design strategy is at least heading in the right direction.

It’s a pity but I’m still thinking of a way to collaborate with DesignworksUSA, seeing as they have a huge font of knowledge in design strategy, but their fees are a real issue for the small to medium size companies that really need their help the most.

Anyways back to the discussion at hand. Unlike what most people in the west think, most companies in Asia (Singapore included) all know the value of what a great design can to for the company. But the real issue is that it’s not merely about designing a product, but an all encompassing 360 degree design strategy that satisfies all aspect of the company’s requirements.

As the head of DesignworksUSA Singapore, nicely puts it to me, “creating that special magic for a brand”.

Now again most companies know this or are not far off but this is much more difficult to implement so much so that designing a product actually becomes the easy part.

In part two I will lay out some of the strategies I have successfully used to implement, foster and facilitate design as a business strategy.

3 Responses to “Asian Companies able to Embrace design as a business strategy? (Part 1)”

  1. on 09 Jul 2006 at 7:56 pm   Yee Seng Fu

    I think it is possible to turn Singapore into a product design hub but it will take time. The engineering education in NUS and NTU are also changing to gear towards design. In Mechanical engineering in NUS, one new specialisation newly launched is Product Design which studies human factors engineering, asthetics factors, ergnomics etc.

    Also, digital interactive media which includes animation looks pretty hot…

    But, guess for BMW studio in singapore, we need a Singaporean-made Chris Bangle.

  2. on 10 Jul 2006 at 10:05 am   » Asian Companies able to Embrace design as a business strategy? (Part 2) - Singapore Entrepreneurs - Entrepreneurship in Singapore

    […] Please do read Part 1 first. […]

  3. on 10 Jul 2006 at 11:00 am   Design Translator

    I’m in agreement with you, and unfortunatly we are in the minority.

    I think the main issue is not so much the technical skills, but the communication aspect of it. Remember reciently there was a media expose on doctors with poor bed side manners?

    The issue is very similar here. Lets hope as time goes on this gap can be bridged.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply