In today’s highly competitive global marketplace, product design companies in every industry are constantly searching for strategies to differentiate themselves, acquire new customers, and ignite growth. For product design consultancies specifically, crafting the right methodologies to create breakthrough innovations as well as systematically expanding their businesses is pivotal to long-term dominance.
As consumers and business customers alike continue to expect and reward outstanding design more than ever before, the urgency for multi-disciplinary design firms to deploy advanced approaches to drive consistent growth only intensifies. The ability to expand across geographies and categories separates thriving design agencies from those unable to keep pace with demands in a dynamic world.
This article chronicles five potent and proven strategies deployed by famous design consultancies to systematically guide business growth, attract premier clients, unlock new markets, and outdo rivals for talent and lucrative projects.
1. Utilize Business Model Innovation Frameworks
Creating novel services with an associated monetization blueprint is pivotal for design consultancies to consistently pioneer markets ahead of client demand curves. Using business model formulation techniques provides structure in envisioning groundbreaking service categories.
One proven technique is the TRIZ framework, which utilizes algorithmic tools to systematically rethink product and service utility for clients. Other options advocate investigating fresh revenue streams and financially quantifying value delivered to target customer segments when devising new offerings.
Design powerhouses embracing such models display demonstrably wider portfolios of service offerings over time and correspondingly larger client budgets. For example, FLYNN, a leading global innovation product design company in uk, utilizes various techniques to brainstorm new services that have expanded its capabilities significantly. This expansion gives consultancies more avenues for growth to pursue as client industries evolve.
2. Follow a Disciplined Design Thinking Process
A clearly defined, proprietary design thinking framework that progresses methodically from discovery to prototype creation is vital when delivering complex, multi-phase assignments where clients expect dependable design innovation.
Stellar design firms develop signature design toolkits encompassing techniques like deep user research for empathy, rapid visualization using sketching and 3D modeling, and structured hypothesis testing through minimum viable product (MVP) experiments with actual users. Customer-centric techniques provide more clarity around hidden needs.
Such iterative design thinking regimes focused on evidence-based risk mitigation via continuous experimentation tangibly enhance both process visibility and project success rates for clients. The documented approach also builds confidence in the consultancy’s ability to manage intricate multi-stakeholder assignments. Adopting design thinking culminates in delighted customers, as tangible metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) indicate. Financial major CitiGroup saw NPS rise 125% across various services post-design thinking implementation, leading to higher renewal rates. Such proof points motivate potential customers facing complex challenges to hire the consultancy.
3. Focus on Core Design Competencies
Most leading design consultancies concentrate on distinct areas of expertise that become anchors for their operations and reputations. By thoroughly understanding select domains they can uniquely impact and deliberately focusing service offerings on them, design firms differentiate from the competition while fostering specialized knowledge.
This concentrated approach allows product design companies to develop tailored design methodologies to match their key competencies. As their reputations in specific competencies grow and they are recognized as domain experts, aligned client opportunities emerge faster, increasing business avenues. Consultancies also learn how to best apply their competencies to new verticals and applications over time.
4. Forge Strategic Partnerships
Forming partnerships that unite complementary design strengths provides consultancies with the means to undertake more ambitious and comprehensive projects and enter previously untapped markets.
Collaborations multiply growth options as unified entities can bid for high-value contracts that require cross-disciplinary competencies. An agency adept at designing medical devices may join forces with a technical engineering consultancy to jointly pursue healthcare industry projects, playing to each partner’s strengths.
As part of the growth strategy, design houses should actively identify potential win-win associations that fill expertise gaps and collaborate to create joint IPs, leverage emerging tech tools, and co-bid for advanced projects.
5. Invest in Design Talent Development
World-class creative talent provides the foundation for any design firm’s problem-solving abilities and capacity for innovation. Developing designer capabilities directly strengthens the value delivered to clients and correlates closely with business growth.
Many consultancies ramp up competencies firm-wide by making smart investments focused on freshly hired graduates and veteran staff. Specialized training allows the exploration of detailed nuances of different design branches. Internal workshop-based initiatives foster company-wide creativity and idea exchange. Bespoke professional coaching elevates the skills of top design talent.
Conclusion
By refusing complacency, product design companies continually evolving their competencies, methods, and partnerships, and exploring new frontiers, they cement reputations as indispensable partners for ambitious organizations aiming to design elegant, human-centric solutions to increasingly complex consumer and social problems.
