How British Businesses Are Becoming More Innovative And Competitive With The Help Of The Design Council

The Briefing, Design Council Magazine Issue 3 .

If your technology business is working on a great idea, the right time to think about how design can help to fulfill its potential is... yesterday.

The Innovate service, which is part of the Design Council's Designing Demand programme is helping technology businesses spread their wings by integrating design into strategy - to attract investment and find you a faster route to market.

Each business gets a mentor - a design associate - for a year, who helps with design projects - advice on choosing and briefing designers, for example. Very often, the process moves the focus away from technology and towards the needs of customers.

One beneficiary of the programme has been biometrics experts KeCrypt, which identifies unique characteristics of an electronic signature, and stores these characteristics - rather than the signature itself - to provide an incredibly accurate security system. KeCrypt worked with designer John Boult to find new customers in three sectors - healthcare, local government and financial services - and devised a sales pitch and DVD that shows the technology at work. This led to a successful trial at Hammersmith Hospitals' NHS Pharmacy.

Boult also persuaded KeCrypt Managing Director John Dale to look again at developing hardware that could run its technology. A design concept for a personal electronic signature device is nearing completion, and, says Dale, "we are talking to two clearing banks about using it."

AutoAlert also found a new customer base, after working with designer Oliver King. The company's anti-theft device sends an alert to the owner's mobile telephone if their vehicle is stolen or broken into. AutoAlert saw its customers as classic-car owners, but King thought the firm should consider the fleet market. He helped AutoAlert develop a message to attract these customers, via a corporate identity, marketing material and web site content.

Co-founder Richard Harris soon found that AutoAlert was punching above its weight in an industry full of big players. "We often found that believed the company was a lot bigger than it was," he says. Today the business has over 100 customers and is seeking further investment to grow sales and promote its products.

See also designingdemand.org.uk