Sir George Cox set the scene in the first of a series of Breakfasts designed to help small design businesses see opportunity in a slowing economy, and to aspire to positions alongside providers of other professional services such as lawyers and accountants.
Despite the gathering recessionary gloom Sir George was in upbeat mode, pointing out that there is a vast untapped market on designers’ doorsteps – the tens of thousands of UK SMEs that don’t use design to solve their business problems. To capture this market, he continued, designers need to start talking less about design and more about cash flow and bottom lines. He quoted the example of management consultancies: “When you see an advertisement for Accenture, it doesn’t mention IT. It’s what they’re selling but the prose is all about improving business performance.”
He encouraged designers to network more extensively with business, pointing out that SMEs are influenced by people in their localities. Striking up relationships with accountants and lawyers is as likely to lead to new business as any amount of mailing or cold calling. He said designers should see themselves less as purveyors of brochures and websites and more as problem-solvers and service designers. They should also charge a premium for ‘design thinking, linking their pricing to improvements in their clients’ business performance. “This creates valuable annuity streams and continuous relationships. And if a business is a start up, consider taking a stake in it in return for your consultancy work.”
Sir George warned against complacency, pointing out the danger of management consultancies moving on to designers’ patch and getting ahead of the game. “If I was a consultancy I’d be looking at introducing design thinking to my offer,” he said.
He also doubted the sustainability of a UK economy based on white collar industries. “The idea that we continue to do all the professional jobs while people in emerging economies manufacture cheap goods for us is a fantastic but ridiculous scenario. These countries are putting a tremendous amount into skills and their indigenous design capability.”
A ‘compartmentalised’ British higher education system is damaging UK competitiveness, he argued. It is producing graduates with deep knowledge of their subject but unequipped to relate to people from other disciplines. The result is conservatism and lack of aspiration in large sections of British industry and, conversely, a visionary design profession that doesn’t speak the language of business. “I studied engineering, but when I graduated, I didn’t know about business and I didn’t know about design,” he explained.
Summing up, he said that designers are in a unique position to be agents for change. “They are great people to have lunch with. They have ideas and you come away stimulated.” In other words, designers add colour and vision to sections of industry which sorely need it. They should not be afraid to recognise their contribution, talk business and charge accordingly.