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Strategic Positioning for Corporate Design Groups
Case Study: Motorola's Enterprise Mobility Business
May 7, 1pm EDT
Graham Marshall, Director Design Research, Motorola
Curt Croley, Sr., Director of Innovation & Design, Motorola
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Graham Marshall |
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Curt Croley |
Motorola's Enterprise Mobility Business (EMb) focuses on mobile computing solutions for business customers who need to capture, move and manage data during their day to day business operations. EMb is the global market leader in these types of business to business solutions and their internal design group is named Innovation & Design. This group holds a unique and strategic position which is rare for corporate design groups. As with most high technology corporations, product development programs are owned by separate divisions within the business and design is often in a service role.
In this case, the Innovation & Design group reports to the Chief Technology Office (CTO) and is in a position to directly influence market opportunity choices and the product development directions across all divisions. This strategic positioning has developed over time and is based on the group’s focus on customer research, its excellence in design and advanced engineering execution, and its track record of pitching and prototyping disruptive concepts that have become successful products.
This team of 38 members includes four general disciplines; industrial design, design research, interaction design and engineering. Design research visited and profiled 133 customers in 2007 and is now well established as the center of customer knowledge for the business; industrial design partners with divisions on all development programs and directly influences product direction decisions. Engineering has the resources and expertise to prototype disruptive products ready for production. In addition, the group initiated and now facilitates the business’s formal innovation process that identifies new product and business opportunities.
Using specific development examples, this Webinar discussion will outline the unique positioning of the group, how it developed, and how this strategic role is continually strengthened.
Key learning points:
Leveraging the value of customer research to position the design team for leadership Facilitating a company wide innovation process as part of the team’s core competency Strengthening technical development skills to solidify relations with the engineering disciplines
Graham Marshall, Director Design Research
Graham is a Director with the Innovation & Design group, part of Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Business. After joining Motorola in January 2006, he began building an internal research team focused on customer research, human factors, and interaction design. Driving innovation became a central focus of the team and now Graham’s team uses its understanding of the customer’s business operations to inform development teams and pitch new product directions. These are often disruptive concepts, technologies or market opportunities that are beyond the focus of the product development groups.
Throughout Graham’s career, he has led product design and human factors teams in a number of high technology companies including NCR Corporation, AT&T, and Nortel. He has also been on the management teams of technology start-ups and product development consultancies. His consulting clients have included Staples, Symbol Technologies, Little Tikes and Proctor & Gamble. In addition, Graham has lectured on product design strategy and innovation at Carleton University, Syracuse University, Carnegie Mellon, and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Curt Croley, Senior Director, Innovation and Design
Curt is the Managing Director with the Innovation & Design group, part of Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Business and has been with Motorola for nine years. Previous to his position as Managing Director, Curt served as Senior Director, Mobile Computing Products within Motorola, heading design efforts that contributed to growth and expansion of the business unit by approximately 400 percent over his tenure. A leading design technologist and advocate of strong technical process, Curt’s focus on process thought leadership has helped streamline design process and reduce product development time by 30%, while fostering critical differentiated product innovation.
A practicing industrial designer for the past 25 years, Curt has worked with a variety of companies throughout his career, including Symbol Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Navistar International, BFGoodrich, Firestone, Remington Firearms, and MTD Products among others. In addition, Curt has lectured and taught industrial design at the Cleveland Institute of Art, University of Cincinnati, Kent State University and Syracuse University.
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