What Makes a Design Consulting Firm Stand Out: Key Characteristics to Look For
There is a growing demand for design consulting services that goes beyond basic design development and focuses on strategy development. In response, expert design firms are evolving into comprehensive design consulting corporations that can provide a range of services to meet this demand. These design consulting firms are able to act as advisors to a wide range of clients, helping them to develop and implement effective design strategies. Many expert design companies in advanced countries are making this transition to become design consulting firms.
Typically, expert design companies handle design projects on a short-term basis and only work with clients on an as-needed basis. However, the number of design consulting firms that are able to act as advisors to multiple clients is expected to increase in the future. This study compares design consulting firms with expert design companies and identifies the key features and characteristics that design consulting firms must possess in order to make the transition from an expert design company to a design consulting firm."
The Emergence of Design Consulting Firms
The rise of design consulting firms can be attributed to the recognition that efficient design requires a wide range of skills and expertise, including not just design but also marketing, consumer research, engineering, and production strategy. These diverse fields are often too much for in-house design departments to handle on their own, leading to a growing trend towards outsourcing design to external firms. As a result, expert design companies are being called upon to provide comprehensive design consulting services, effectively serving as in-house design departments for their clients.
This shift towards design consulting firms has also been fueled by the downsizing of corporate design departments and the subsequent increase in design professionals seeking new employment or starting their own small businesses. This has led to a rise in the number of expert design companies.
Distinguishing Characteristics of Expert Design Companies and Design Consulting Firms
There are several key differences between expert design companies and design consulting firms. Expert design companies are typically responsible for their own subcontracts and can be seen as design subcontractors that handle design work for their clients. Design consulting firms, on the other hand, operate outside the client corporation and serve as a strategic department within it.
Design outsourcing is often project-based and involves supporting design activities for the improvement of existing products. If a client company is not satisfied with the ideas being generated by an expert design company, they may turn to a different expert design company for the project. Design consulting firms, on the other hand, offer integrated management consulting, including inspection and adjustment of the client's design, diagnosis of whether these adjustments align with the client's direction, and integrated management such as branding and advertising.
In summary, design outsourcing typically involves design work being outsourced to an expert design company through an in-house design department or other department in need of design. Design consulting, on the other hand, involves the development of a design management strategy tailored to the specific needs of the client. This is the main difference between design outsourcing and design consulting. Design consulting firms establish long-term relationships with their clients and serve as a strategic department within the client corporation, offering corporate management through design and ensuring a consensus on corporate image by inspecting and adjusting the internal and external images of the client company.
Services Offered by Design Consulting Corporations
To establish a design consulting corporation, there are several key factors to consider. Firstly, it is important to establish long-term relationships with clients, as this can help to build a strong foundation for the business. This may involve regularly interacting with clients, offering quality services, and building trust over time. Secondly, it is important to have a clear organizational structure in place, with defined roles and responsibilities for team members. This can help to ensure that projects are efficiently managed and completed on time. Thirdly, it is important to consider how to effectively handle remuneration issues, such as pricing services, negotiating contracts, and managing payment processes. Fourthly, it is essential to have a proactive approach to proposing and presenting design ideas to clients, and being open to feedback and iteration. Finally, it is important to consider the strategic development of the corporation's design offerings, in order to stay relevant and competitive in the market.
Long-term Relationships
Design consulting corporations can be most effective in their role when they are able to establish long-term relationships with their clients. This is because corporate design should be used as a tool for building a corporate image and identity, rather than just being focused on the success of individual products. To do this, the design consulting corporation must understand the vision, culture, and identity of the client corporation through a long-term relationship. This requires a learning period in which both parties can work together and learn from each other. It is also important to share enough information to build a solid foundation of mutual understanding. Without this, it may be difficult to achieve the desired results. In order to be effective, the design consulting corporation should be seen as a strategic department within the client corporation, even though it is an external entity. This requires the client corporation to participate in the design process and work together with the consulting firm to achieve the best results.
To achieve the best results, client corporations should be willing to go through a learning period. This is especially important in design, as recognition of the need for learning is often limited compared to technical development. While most publicized corporate design cases are successful, learning from failure is just as important. In fact, most corporate design projects are likely to end in failure at some point. However, failure can be a valuable part of the learning process. It is important for designers to be given the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, and if they view the learning period as an investment rather than a cost, they will be more likely to achieve better results. In order to achieve the best results, it is also necessary for client corporations to share enough information with the design consulting corporation to build a solid foundation of mutual understanding. Inaccurate or insufficient information can make it difficult to guarantee the completeness of the results, and it is important for the client corporation to participate in and work together with the design consulting corporation throughout the project.
Structuring a Design Consulting Corporation
To be effective, the organization of a design consulting corporation should be interdisciplinary in nature. This means that it should include designers, marketers, and engineers, as well as experts in other fields. This is similar to a small-sized design department within a regular corporation. One way to achieve this is through a task force system, in which experts from diverse businesses work together on a project. For example, the GK Design Group in Japan includes industrial designers, office workers, and experts in fields such as architecture, social psychology, lighting, philosophy, science, and business administration. Similarly, the American design consulting corporation IDEO started with only four employees, but now has a talented staff of over 400+ people working in areas such as business strategy, marketing strategy, and human resources management. By bringing together experts from various fields and leveraging their unique skills and expertise, design consulting corporations can achieve more effective results.
To improve the effectiveness of design consulting corporations, it is important to reconsider the rigid structure of traditional corporations. Designers within a corporation often only make visual proposals that have to go through multiple report stages before they are approved. This can make it difficult for these proposals to reach the final decision maker, leading to delays in design development, brand improvement, and other important projects. This is often due to a lack of budget or a lack of power within the design department compared to other departments. One solution to this problem is to appoint a "design champion" at the director level. This person would report to senior staff, control junior staff, establish and adjust the system for a project, provide their opinion for consideration in final decision-making, and exercise control as a whole. By having a design champion in an organization, it is possible to not only develop products but also manage and execute projects more quickly and efficiently. It is important to recognize that failure is a necessary part of the process and to not be afraid to propose new ideas. By considering these factors and tailoring the organizational structure to match the characteristics of the corporation, a design consulting corporation can have strong organizational power.
Recommendations for Proactive Design
Designers should move away from passive design work, which involves only proposing designs when requested, and instead engage in proactive design work. This means presenting new, superior design ideas to clients based on their potential success. Designers should also recognize the value of design and strive to create high-value-added work. To do this, they should develop and propose good design ideas to corporations or clients in a way that allows them to retain the established trust and mutual ownership of the design.
Approaching Design Development from a Corporate Strategy Perspective
In order to effectively develop or improve designs, it is important to evaluate whether the brand, packaging, advertising, and other elements related to design align with the image of the corporation. If they do not, the design consultant should propose suitable alternatives by analyzing whether the problem is related to the product itself or the corporate identity (CI). Victor Seidel of Stanford University has outlined the roles of a design consultant based on interviews and surveys. These roles may include:
Designer as Strategy Visualizer: Design is the representation of a strategic goal and is the most basic and traditional role of a designer.
Designer as Core Competence Prospector: This involves the ability to predict superiority in essential competition. A client corporation may seek new strategic input to change an existing strategy or enter a new business field or diversify its business. In these cases, the designer's role is to predict the potential for market success from an outsider's perspective.
Designer as Market Exploiter: The designer should make a proposal to help the corporation expand into a new area within its existing operations. For example, Coca Cola developed "Morning Coke" to target consumers in the morning, and Arm & Hammer, a company specializing in baking soda, developed toothpaste, deodorant, and other products to open up new markets. This demonstrates that it is possible to extend a market by modifying an idea or increasing the usability of a product. Therefore, it is important for the designer to understand the core capabilities of the client corporation and have a deep understanding of the market in order to provide a new strategic direction.
Designer as Design Process Provider: This involves addressing problems that arise during any stage of the design process, including personnel issues, decisions about expanding or reducing the product line, and the involvement of marketers or engineers. This may also involve working with "silent designers," who support various stages of the design process. To develop strategic design, it is important to understand the characteristics of the client corporation. If the client is innovative, it may be beneficial for the designer to take a leadership role in the project and adopt a product-centered marketing strategy. On the other hand, if the client is a late adopter of innovation, it may be more effective to focus on consumer analysis or image management strategy.
A corporation's level of innovation and brand value can vary, and each corporation may have different design development strategies based on its characteristics. The design consulting corporation should understand the location and situation of the client corporation in order to determine the strategic focus of design development. Without making this decision, the design process may simply be limited to project-based development, lacking strategic consulting services. This is where expert design companies may struggle to provide comprehensive design consulting.
Conclusion
We are now in an age of design consulting services. Corporations are demanding such services, and expert design companies must transform into design consulting corporations that provide strategic design development rather than just project-based design. To do this, we have identified five key characteristics of design consulting corporations: long-term relationships with clients, a well-organized structure, fair compensation, active design proposals, and design development from a corporate strategic perspective. Design consulting corporations should not just fulfill requests from client corporations, but should be able to propose designs and strategies as if they were an internal department of the corporation. This requires diverse expertise and the ability to play a central role in the operations of corporations. By generating profits and taking on some responsibility for potential damage, design consulting corporations can establish long-term relationships and achieve mutual benefits.
