Economic Effects
Design as an Economic Value: The Intangible Effects of Design on Commercial Optimization
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yifat Reuveni
The olive oil sector has strategic economic importance in terms of production and consumption. It shows a steady increase in demand (6% annually) due to its undisputed culinary and health virtues, yet alongside excellence in production, a market emerged of inefficiently produced low quality products based on diverse supply chains, leading to forgery and adulteration that depreciate olive oil culture and harm quality and trust. With no industry standards and production design, qualified producers and distributers face challenges in tracking and tracing olive oil through its supply chain and consumers are left with low quality, not-healthy, tasteless yet expensive products. Research based on blockchain-enabled solution, shows how design can address production excellence by sketching traceability, outlining the chain from the grove to the bottle, and improved planning of information sharing. Furthermore, the designed production can integrate digital and physical aspects by combining smart technologies and advanced optimization of operations to achieve active engagement in the overall production cycle, thus enable asset transfer (provenance), cross-organizational workflow, and multiparty auditing, and help to transform efficiency, trust, and quality in the market. Through piloting MVP with local growers and producers in Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, and Israel, the designed production enabled traction to date with market validation and thus raised quality and value. The research indicates an initial and innovative economic message, which highlights the significant influence of assimilating design thinking in Agri-Tech sector to bind trust to suppliers, establish certification to clients, generate commercial value, address provenance, and protect regions.
The Vision of Design Awareness in a Family Business from an Emerging Market View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Selin Gulden, Ozlem Er
This paper reveals insights from an ongoing doctoral study engaging with the principles of family owned office furniture manufacturers in Turkey. The initial findings presented in this paper relate to the engagement, commitment, and action applied in the design management process of the first case study undertaken. The aim of this study is to refer to the design value and related investments in a family business when achieving innovation. In this pilot explorative case study, the data is gathered from semi-structured interviews in order to get significant and in-depth information with a qualitative and comprehensive approach. The participants included second generation family - chairman of the board, third generation family - deputy general manager sales & marketing, non-family corporate communications and marketing director, and non-family R&D director. Then, with a thematic analysis, patterns and common themes are revealed and associated with each other. The findings show how a family business internalizes design principles and philosophies in an emerging market. As family entrepreneurs have unique decision-making processes and strategies during phases of design and innovation, the main data of this case study reveals the possible ways creating competitive advantage in a low-cost environment with a vision for design awareness by internalizing a design thinking approach in the core culture of business, and also creating initiatives and supporting projects for social, economic, and political spheres.
Czech Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Approach to Design Management: Is there a Correlation between Design Management and Business Prosperity?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jan Kramolis
This paper considers Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Design Management. More precisely the relationship between design management and business prosperity. The study is based on quantitative research conducted in January 2019 on a sample of 186 valid records. The main issues are transformed into research questions. These research questions are further evaluated into several hypotheses, which were statistical tested. The results suggest that (as presumably expected) there is a correlation between well-managed design management and business prosperity. The results were analyzed across the size of companies, share of exported output and with regard to B2B/B2C/B2G. The limitation of research results is seen mainly on a limited number of samples coming only from the Czech economy. The research did not in depth identify the precisely the term "business prosperity". Sometimes prosperity is labeled by increasing profits, sales, market share, or brand value. The originally of the paper lies in the uniqueness of research and the possibility of utilization results on other economies similar to the Czech Republic.
