Conclusion

This thesis has examined the influence of design led innovation on a family owned manufacturing SME. Delivered through the investigation method of action research, the study aimed to broaden understanding of how family owned firms could integrate a design led approach to, in turn, instil a culture of innovation. More specifically, it examined the internal barriers and conflicts that firms, consultants and design catalysts may face when trying to shift an organisation’s established processes and culture. This is extremely important because family owned SME’s sustain a large proportion of Australia’s business landscape and will need to find new ways to remain competitive if they are going to survive in the current economic climate.

Literature surrounding family owned SME’s indicated unique qualities that could limit their ability to effectively pursue change and innovation. These included emotional attachment with the historical foundations of the company, which is entrenched by concurrent generations of family stewards and long- term employees. In addition, a preference to be financially frugal, lessen risk and maintain company stability for future generations. Equally so however, family owned SME’s tend to harness a great deal of wisdom and accumulated knowledge from loyal employees. They are also cited as being much more likely to withstand turbulent economic and global environments through being strategically astute. In light of these traditionally business orientated challenges, one of the key gaps in knowledge is how to effectively articulate the advantages of pursuing a design approach in a way that is meaningful to business discourse. This is critical in ensuring firms are able to internalise and subsequently steer the wheel of innovation autonomously.

Utilising an action research approach over the period of one year, the researcher was embedded in the case firm. Data was captured through three key methods, a reflective journal, 25 qualitative interviews and a focus group session. Thematic analysis of the data revealed 5 key opportunities for

change that could enable the firm to be more design led. The first theme identified the individualist approach to work particularly in the process of product management and strategic concept development. Hand in hand with this was the need to involve and leverage more people from all parts of the company (including the operational/lower ranking employees) to enrich the strategic discussions and encourage challenging of ideas. Thirdly, building customer relationships to more freely capture valuable insight was seen as a key area for improvement but was also noted as dependent on the firm’s ability to steer the conversation away from product. In turn, this would particularly aid the new product development process in placing more emphasis on the problem identification phases and value creation processes. The designer’s ability to create innovative solutions to customer problems was also cited as being clouded by an unclear company vision to guide day- to-day critical design decisions and objectives. Lastly, the final recurrent theme was the opposing forces between employee’s recognition of the need to act on change but also their lack of time to do so because of their existing responsibilities.

Some frameworks were also put forward particularly in the area of new product development as recommended initial strategies to try and align the company vision with the core project portfolio. This thesis is important to industry because it provides comparative, practice-driven findings that could be transferrable to other firms. For designers who may be involved in driving innovation and change, this thesis offers empirical evidence of strategies that elicit positive and negative responses from a family owned business.

For a firm to become successfully design integrated they must be willing to identify, eliminate or innovate aspects of the business that are not adding value to the customer. Fundamental to achieving this however is the deep understanding of what it actually is the customer wants. Consequently, continuation of existing business activities often prevails through a preference to protect what has been established even when there is

recognition of weaknesses in the business model proposition or execution of the proposition. This demonstrates the fundamental need for designers and firms alike to intimately understand the cultural, political, social and operational complexities that affect firm’s ability to become more outward facing. Not only to capture customer information, but to internalise that information meaningfully into new products, services and business models that have unique value propositions.

Alignment between design and business relies on the absolute understanding of what drives value for one another and the processes that create that value. In this study, these paradigms were largely reflected through the division between operational and strategic departments of the firm. It is fundamental that these two entities are not seen as isolated activities, which tends to occur over time through the embedding and reinforcement of routine processes and culture. Successfully integrating design led innovation relies on opening up communication between these two ends of a business to ensure that a firm’s soft assets like it’s strategic vision is married with the firm’s hard assets like it’s products and services that are released into the market. Ultimately leading to numerous innovative benefits “not just in new products or services, but through employing, skilfully managing and soundly implementing design throughout a company’s business strategy” (Matthews and Bucolo, 2011).