The text is aimed primarily at academics, but will have practitioner appeal, and will be made up of a combination of theory and case studies, providing a global approach. The structure of the book is split into the following 3 parts:
1)framework
2)cases
3)comparison and outcome of the cases and recommendations for business and research
Increasingly, design is strategically employed by marketing to gain a competitive advantage, for example by differentiating products from those of competitors, identifying new markets or incorporating new technology to provide an enhanced offering. By understanding the role of design in a business, the authors show how best to utilise this expertise to help form an effective strategy to sustain competitiveness.
Evidence of effective marketing approaches to illustrate how a design perspective can be a strategic marketing resource for companies are demonstrated through the cases. The cases are from a wide spectrum of companies, spanning retail, manufacturing and service and include international firms.
Increasingly design is outsourced and often marketing professionals are the ones responsible for sourcing and communicating with design suppliers, and ensuring delivery of the design project is kept on schedule and within budget. How to source and project manage design is therefore a key aspect of the book.
For complex projects, multi-disciplinary design skills are needed (for example, engineering, product and communication) and their role in the project needs to be co-ordinated and managed effectively to ensure that they are interpreting and delivering the appropriate product/service for the market, and on time and within budget.The project team may be virtual and also may be global, so approaches to the management of such a team is discussed in the book. Reinforcement of the brand values and corporate reputation is another important facet of the marketing-design relationship that is addressed.
Marketing professionals need to be able to leverage expertise and knowledge from the value chain to ensure that appropriate products and services are available for the target market. The value chain is an important source of information, which can be accessed through the building of relationships between organisations, such as partnerships and networked organisations. Essentially, partnering is the building of co-operative alliances between companies in the supply chain that have complimentary core competencies. These can include a pooling of resources, and a focus on mutual improvement. Partnering allows companies to spread the risk and costs of development, to harness skills, and also provides them with access to new marketing channels. It enables companies to share different design skills, which are crucial to the innovation process, as they can form the core competence that gives the company a competitive edge. However, disadvantages can also be found from building partnerships and alliances, including difficulties in meeting expectations of all parties involved, reduced control over the product development process and increased costs, time and effort. Approaches to partnering of client and design firms and the role of marketing professionals in this will be explored and discussed in the cases.
Recommendations as to how to manage design from a marketing perspective through the value chain will be made in thefinal section of the proposed book.
* Features international case studies from which key points are drawn
* Demonstrates how to fully utilise design in marketing to ensure the competitive edge is gained
* Includes a managerial toolkit that features recommendations of how to leverage design from the value chain
- ISBN10 0750661275
- ISBN13 9780750661270
- Publish Date 21 December 2005
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 December 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 224
- Language English