ID 462 Design Management Annotation

The Role of Design in Business Performance

In this annotation, I am going to talk about the article “The Role of Design in
Business Performance” written by Bruce Tether. Article has points about nature of design
knowledge, design relation between appropriation and innovation, ‘consumption’ of
design knowledge.
Design knowledge relates to both knowledge of design processes and knowledge
embodied in designed outcomes. Likewise design outcomes relate to both highly
functional products and to artistic/expressive products. The other point was about
appropriation and innovation. Where design involves the development and introduction
of innovations based on new concepts which are within the capabilities of a number of
existing firms there is potential for market failure. However, design also has an important
role to play in building a firm’s reputation and credibility with consumers. Like Sony
Walkman example that article gave it. In that time in the market, they released bunch of
other brands Walkman similar to Sony but in that time having a Sony Walkman was a
must have product. This is a thing that still goes on and will go too. Like Sony example, in
our time we have similar thing too. Like Apple AirPods. When it released in market after
a short time, we started to see similar things with cheaper prices. Even there are other
good branches came up with same thing, nowadays having a AirPods is something. Like
Sony Walkman. Besides this there is ‘consumption’ of design knowledge that article
mention about. Design should include R&D and marketing. This is important before
continuing to ‘consumption’ of design knowledge because companies can sometimes
give up from one of them. To continue ‘consumption’ of design knowledge, this goes
back to what is meant by design. Gorb and Dumas identified ‘silent design’ as being
when marketing, production and other staff contribute to design decisions, or are
involved in the design and development work, even though they are not officially
designated, nor trained as, designers. In the UK, approximately 50 companies account for
two-thirds of total R&D expenditure, and the concentration of the ‘research’ element
within this is likely to be still greater. Design is more distributed across sectors and by
firm size – it is a more accessible tool for innovation than R&D. However, the highly
effective exploitation of design depends on tacit knowledge which difficult to acquire
and use appropriately. Like article has some points about it, design is something with
other elements. Listening feedbacks or finding what is need on the market right now.
These things are important because whit these things design got its final shape.
In brief, design needs other stuff like R&D and marketing. Firms should think
about their moves not only for releasing a ‘new’ product but also deciding their other
stuff like expenditure to right stuff.
References
Tether, B. (2003) The Role of Design in Business Performance, ESRC Centre for Research
on Innovation and Competition (CRIC), www.berr.gov.uk/files/file14796.pdf