One of our clients (WorldFirst) spoke so enthusiastically about the benefits that they had received from the London Development Agency and Design Council’s Designing Demand programme – which helps senior management teams help their companies grow by using design - that I hardly hesitated to sign up haysmacintyre. We had also seen the research that shows businesses which use design as a key strategic driver are consistently more successful across practically every indicator of business performance including market share, growth, productivity, share price and competitiveness.
Fortunately, we made it through the rigorous screening process and selected a small team comprising a couple of the Management Board members, two of our Business Development team and some of the younger partners. The process started with an immersion day in April where we helped our account manager Kate and the three design experts (covering brand, product and design management) get up to speed about haysmacintyre and its markets.
As well as a general briefing, there were a number of one to one sessions between members of our team and the design experts. At the end of the day, the Designing Demand team – supported by a variety of multi-coloured Post It notes – presented back their findings and conclusions under a number of categories: first impressions, vision and strategy, brand and communications, product and service, client and users, design management and culture and environment. It was an intensive but stimulating day and made us all think about the business.
A short while after, Kate, our account manager sent us a formal report summarising the key points arising from the immersion day and setting out 16 opportunities for us to consider. 16! We were overwhelmed. Once we had all had a change to digest the information we gathered a small internal team to consider the opportunities and how they aligned with our strategic and operational priorities.
At the beginning of June, we took our place amongst (10?) other organisations who had been through the process to introduce ourselves and to present back our reactions to process and indicate how we thought we would progress the key opportunities. It was interesting to hear about different companies from a variety of sectors had engaged in the process and their thoughts on the value that design could bring to their future success. A valuable networking opportunity too.
Just yesterday we had a further meeting with our account manager and identified the first project – focusing on our values and the engagement of all our staff and its impact on the client service experience – where we ask external brand to provide cost estimates to help us move forward.
Overall, it’s been an interesting, stimulating and worthwhile programme so far and we are confident that the work we do as a result will strengthen our ability to achieve our ambitious plans for the future.
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