Hey, happy Monday!

Businesses that invest in design grow faster than those that do not. But they need to invest in a very specific direction. I caught up with Domenico Sturabotti, Director of the Symbola Foundation, by phone to interpret the numbers in the report presented last Thursday.

Design Economy 2020

Design Economy is now in its fourth edition and as of 2017 is the most authoritative work putting numbers to this strategic sector for the Italian economy. You can also download past editions for free from this link.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this report is something completely new to you, which is the main reason I decided to dedicate our weekly appointment to it.

Designers and companies travel on parallel tracks that still do not meet. Although they work for each other, they struggle to understand each other, and so designers fail to measure their impact on the income statement, and entrepreneurs and managers, complicit in the increasing technological complexity of processes, find it increasingly difficult to integrate this function into production processes, teams and the corporate organizational chart.

This report investigates what is really going on and suggests a possible way forward.

Italy is first but…

Italy with nearly 34 thousand businesses, accounting for 15.5 percent of the entire design system in the European community, ranks first in number of businesses in Europe, after there are Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain.

But beware…despite a primacy in terms of companies, Germany and the United Kingdom record not only more jobs than Italy, but also a much stronger growth trend.

A: “Domenico, can you help us interpret the report to find an explanation?”

Domenico: “Going deep into the survey thanks in part to the support of Polidesign, we interviewed a sample of companies to understand the composition of design services offered by designers to help us classify the degree of maturity of companies in using design services. What has emerged is that for the most part design works primarily on form or product. In contrast, there are still few companies in Italy that link design to a process or strategic dimension.

Having said that, we also have to cross another data point. If we go and look at the companies that invest in design, it is true that they are more competitive, but among them, the ones that have the most growth are the ones that have invested in design to change the corporate culture. So it is not design tout court that improves companies, but design when it acts on changing the enterprise, from its top to all functions.”

A: “Why, for designers and companies, is it important to understand this?”

Domenico: “This reading highlights that there is no longer a market for design understood only as form but the dimension that drives competitiveness is the apex dimension that changes the way the company relates to the market.”

The Role of Design in the Future

Dominic: “As we work with so many companies and in so many sectors, we realize more and more that major transformations happen because at some point the meaning that actors play in the economy changes. In this scenario what we see is that companies change their organizational model to prioritize the relationship not only with the customer but also with the supply chain, redefining, even in their own bylaws, the definition of value no longer only related to profit but also in social and environmental terms. The role of design will be precisely to make sense of the vast amount of new technologies to redesign relationships inside and outside the company.“

A: “From designing experiences to designing relationships- can we say that?”

Domenico: “There is a new model of enterprise to be designed that anchors itself not only to the economy but to society and no longer puts man at the center but nature understood as community. Designers will be called upon to redefine the perimeter of enterprises in society.”

A: “What does design need to focus on to have the impact needed to stimulate growth?”

Domenico: “Designers will work on the functioning of the enterprise by shaping processes around products by managing their entire life cycle all the way back into the supply chain. It is important to make entrepreneurs and managers understand that design helps change culture, changes businesses and drives them.”

A: “Where do you start working on the future?”

Domenico: “Looking outside the company. The designer of the future will have to redefine industrial processes that no longer take place inside the company but will connect different players. There are still too few and too few companies investing in design. Indeed, there is an urgent need to spread awareness among entrepreneurs of the impact of design on company performance at all levels, so that design culture can be better integrated into business strategies and not relegated to an ancillary function.”

Good work!
Make yourself heard.

Full disclosure: I have not received any request for promotion or any compensation that would influence my opinions.

Bonus ↓

This project perfectly incorporates the topics discussed in this note.

On is a Swiss company and the first to launch a subscription running shoe. A magnificent example of a circular economy combined with an innovative business model that intercepts new demand by doing what they do best: shoes and e-commerce. You can’t have them yet, you pay for them and get on the list. It’s a pretotype, yes with an “e” instead of an “o.”

In the note No. 41 I used to talk about how to reconfigure the organization to impact price, profit and growth logic, as well as competition and the operation of the business itself in general. This reconfiguration is the secret to the most profitable business models ever.

On was born with one goal: to revolutionize the sensation of running. Soft landings followed by explosive takeoffs thanks to a revolutionary sole and materials. Learn about the project here