Design and market position - mapping the market with the MADRID market map

This paper reports on some of the significant findings of the MADRID project - "Market Demands that Reward Investment in Design". The origin of the project wasas a follow up, and development of, the earlier CID - "Commercial Impacts of Design" study (Roy & Potter, 1993). CID was undertaken by the Design Innovation Group, from 1987-90, as a study of over 220 design and product development projects in small and medium sized UK manufacturers. It provided, for the first time,quantified information on the commercial returns upon investing in professional design expertise at the product level. The MADRID project builds upon this work andsought to identify: (a) Which types of market(s) are most likely to produce the best commercial returns from investments in design and product development? (b) The most effective contribution of design in different market types. (c) The longterm commercial benefits of investment in design and product development. This paper presents the results of a re-analysis of data from the earlier CID study in order to address the first of the above aims. The results for the second aim were reported in Roy & Riedel (1997) and the third aim in Roy et. al. (1998). Different approaches for market mapping were reviewed in order to develop a suitable technique for analysing the relationship between the market position of a company's product and its commercial performance. This led to the development of a new type of "market map" for classifying product markets according to dimensions of quality and price sensitivity versus volume of production. This MADRID market map enabled products involving different inputs of design (product, graphics, engineering, industrial design) and with different degrees of financial performance to be compared according to the type of market at which they were aimed. Some 64 products were successfully plotted on the MADRID market map. The analysis of commercial performance showed that there are successful products aimed at all types of market. Nevertheless, there were two noticeable clusters of commercially successful products - aimed at mid-quality, niche markets (QN) and at mid-quality, volume markets (QV). Some products in the price-sensitive volume (PV) market were also successful, where companies attempted to gain a competitive edge through adding value/ quality, whilst reducing the price-sensitivity of their products. However, the price-sensitive, niche (PN) market can be a problematic one in which to position a product. It appears difficult to perform well in it. In conclusion design was used by companies either to move products into more profitable quality-sensitive markets or, in the case of some high-quality niche market products, to reduce costs and thereby increase sales volume. None of the companies attempted to move their product down-market (bar the exceptions of high product quality companies trying to capture larger sales volumes). Likewise, none crossed from quality-sensitive to price-sensitive markets

Identifying the Baseline for Serious Games in Corporate Training

The term Serious Gaming was coined by David Rejeski and Ben Sawyer in their white paper Serious Games Initiative (2002(. Serious games are games that educate, train and inform (Michael & Chen, 2006) and they are proven successful as a learning method for conveying skills on complex tasks. It could therefore be expected that serious games would play an important role within cooperate[sic] training, but this seems not to be the case. In order to identify which barriers the use of serious games in corporate training faces, the authors have developed a questionnaire in the frame of the Gala NoE project. This article presents the questionnaire as such, and it is the intention of the authors that the feedback of the IFIP workshop will be used to improve the questionnaire

Setting the stage for service experience:design strategies for functional services

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify service design strategies to improve outcome-oriented services by enhancing consumers’ emotional experience, while overcoming customer variability. Design/methodology/approach: An abductive, multiple-case study involves 12 service firms from diverse online and offline service sectors. Findings: Overall, six service design strategies represent two overarching themes: customer empowerment can involve design for typical customers, visibility, and community building, while customer accommodation can involve design for personas, invisibility, and relationship building. Using these strategies helps set the stage for a service to offer an emotional experience. Research limitations/implications: The study offers a first step toward combining investigations of service experience and user experience. Further research can strengthen these links. Practical implications: The six design strategies described using examples from case research offer managerial recommendations. In particular, these strategies can help service managers address the customer-induced variability inherent in services. Originality/value: Extant studies of experience staging have focused on particular sectors such as hospitality and leisure; this study contributes by investigating outcome-focused services and identifying strategies to create unique experiences that offset variability. It also represents a rare effort to combine research from service management and interaction design, shedding light on the link between service experience and user experience

Workshop on the Use of Serious Games in the Education of Engineers

AbstractSerious games have proved to be an important tool in supporting the education and training at schools and universities as well as for vocational training in industry. Most games designed for educational or vocational use are designed for a very narrow purpose, mostly for mediating a small range of skills to a specific target group. This paper outlines the workshop on the use of serious games in the education of engineers. It presents the topic and raises some questions that will be discussed during the workshop

Articulating the service concept in professional service firms

Purpose: This study proposes a solution to the challenges of Professional Service Firms (PSF), which are referred to as cat herding, opaque quality and lack of process standardization. These result from misalignment in the mental pictures that managers, employees and customers have of the service. The study demonstrates how the process of articulating a shared service concept reduces these challenges. Methodology: A narrative methodology is used to analyze the perspectives of old management, new management and employees during organizational change in a PSF–a website design company growing to offer full-service branding. Group narratives are constructed using longitudinal data gathered through interviews and fieldwork, in order to compare the misaligned mental pictures and show the benefits of articulating the service concept. Findings: Professional employees view growth and change as threats to their culture and practice, particularly when new management seeks to standardize processes. These threats are revealed to stem from misinterpretations caused by miscommunication of intentions and lack of participation in decision making. Articulating a shared service concept helps to align understanding and return the firm to equilibrium. Research Limitations: The narrative methodology helps unpack conflicting perspectives, but is open to claims of subjectivity and misrepresentation. To ensure fairness and trustworthiness, informants were invited to review and approve the narratives. Originality: The study contributes propositions related to the value of articulating a shared service concept as a means of minimizing the challenges of PSFs

Developing a National Design Scoreboard

Recognising the growing importance of design, this paper reports on the development of an approach to measuring design at a national level. A series of measures is proposed, that are based around a simplified model of design as a system at a national level. This model was developed though insights from literature and a workshop with government, industry and design sector representatives. Detailed data on design in the UK is presented to highlight the difficulties in collecting reliable and robust data. Evidence is compared with four countries (Spain, Canada, Korea and Sweden). This comparison highlights the inherent difficulties in comparing performance and a revised set of measures is proposed. Finally, an approach to capturing design spend at a firm level is proposed, based on insights from literature and case studies. Keywords: National Design System, Design Performance</p

The knowledge creation process in new product development teams in simulation games: a literature review

This paper describes some of the work that has been done to analyse the New Product Development (NPD) Simulation Game – COSIGA. The NPD process is one of knowledge creation – as the process progresses more knowledge is created by the NPD team members. To deepen the understanding of the knowledge creation process with the Cosiga game a literature review of knowledge creation in NPD was undertaken. The journals covered by the review were the top management journals. The literature review showed that the existing knowledge creation theories and models do not provide sufficient explanation as to how individuals in a multi-disciplinary team environment create knowledge, or what type of developmental stages team interaction goes through to develop new products. This paper describes the results of a literature review on knowledge creation in new product development and of relevant empirical studies. The paper outlines the starting point for how to analyse interactions in team-based processes, whether simulations like Cosiga, or in practice

Independence and property in Kant's Rechtslehre

I argue that the freedom which is to coexist with the freedom of choice of others in accordance with a universal law mentioned in Kant's Rechtslehre is not itself freedom of choice. Rather, it is the independence which is a condition of being able to exercise genuine free choice by not having to act in accordance with the choices of others. Kant's distinction between active and passive citizenship appears, however, to undermine this idea of independence, because the possession of a certain type of property right on the part of some citizens makes it possible for them to dominate others. Kant's account of property in this way turns out to be central to the question as to whether his Rechtslehre represents an internally consistent account of how freedom can be guaranteed within a legal and political community. I go on to argue that Kant's attempt to justify a pre-political right of property cannot be viewed as a successful justification of private property, and that he should have abandoned the notion of such a right together with any presumption in favour of private property