The High Cost of Saving Money
Corporate Design Management Faces Downsizing,
Outsourcing, Elimination
By Rob Wallace, Managing Partner, Wallace Church, Inc.
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| Rob Wallace |
Several months ago, a well-respected Fortune 500 consumer products
corporation asked its design leader to fire his entire staff and
re-hire them under the payroll of one of its pre-press consultants.
As a reward for completing this awkward transition, the design manager
was, in turn, laid off. The corporation required him to outsource
himself out of a job.
Downsizing and outsourcing are only some of the increasing attacks
on corporate design management. In a never-ending quest for cost
efficiency, corporations are undermining one of their core competencies
and eliminating one of their most valuable assets.
Why is design management so often in the center of the cost savings
crosshairs? Why isn't the process more highly valued and properly
supported? Why are design managers fighting to keep their jobs?
The answers to these questions are rooted in three primary issues:
an absence of "best practices," a lack of autonomy, and
an inability to measure design's direct financial impact.
No Established “Best Practices”
Walk into virtually any consumer products organization and analyze
how they structure their marketing function. Regardless of its size,
global reach and product offerings, the vast majority of consumer
product corporations organize the marketing process the very same
way. Analyze how corporations manage procurement, accounting, sales—and
again, chances are that these structures are very similar if not
identical. However, analyze how these same organizations manage
the brand identity design process, and you’ll find virtually
no two alike. Some combine a small internal creative and/or production
staff complemented by a team of design project managers. Other corporate
design functions are managed by a shrinking handful of overworked
managers responsible for virtually every brand identity effort for
an ever-increasing number of brands. Still others (and you might
be surprised that they include some of the world’s largest
consumer product organizations) have one- or two-person departments
doing their level best to orchestrate hundreds of annual design
assignments. And an alarming number of companies, like the one mentioned
earlier, literally have no dedicated internal design management.
Some of these organizations outsource this function to their pre-press
houses or their design consultancies. Others delegate design management
to their marketing teams, some of whom have never managed a design
program before. Of these, very few, if any, provide their marketing
staff with any training in design management or any standardized
process to follow.
Why does this inconsistency exist? If the brand identity design
process is a discipline that can be tracked and measured, if design
management requires a person with a defined skill set, then why
are there no industry recognized “best practices”?
Accountability without Autonomy
If there is continuity in how corporations manage the design process,
it exists in the limits that are placed on design management. As
a widely exhibited generality, design management has no direct link
to executive management; it does not hold the purse strings, nor
does it have the exclusive authority to manage design assignments.
In short, corporate design managers often bear all of the responsibility
for the process but have little power to initiate or exclusively
control it.
Few consumer product corporations provide for design leadership
above the middle management level. While there are certainly executives
who understand design’s value, very few of them have risen
through the ranks as creative process leaders. Even for those who’ve
achieved extraordinary results in design leadership, the career
path stalls at the Senior Manager or Director level. And even then,
only the most successful maintain their positions by continually
proving their value and the value of their self-created design process.
Few design managers have direct control over their own project
budgets. Sure, design management has significant input in selecting
outside resources and overseeing their pricing. And yes, all creative
departments have an established budget for staff salaries and overhead.
But virtually every design assignment is funded through—and
therefore ultimately controlled by—the brand marketing team.
In more cases than corporate design managers might like to admit,
the decisions driving the design process are largely made by marketers,
many of whom have little or no experience in directing a design
project. As a result, corporate design managers and their consultants
must first be on-the-job teachers, guiding their marketing teams
in their new role as design project managers.
No ROI Measures
An age-old wisdom asserts, “If you can’t measure it,
you can’t manage it.” One of the most important tools
in establishing design’s value—and the value of those
who manage it—is the ability to determine the financial return
that the design process generates. While all corporations can tell
you how much design costs, few, if any, measure its direct impact
on the bottom line. Working with more than four dozen consumer product
corporations, we determined that only one has an established methodology
to measure brand identity design’s financial return, and these
folks won’t share their process or the data.
When asked about instituting such a measure, many design managers
assert that it’s all they can do just to get the job done.
Continually tightening project budgets and timetables leave no resources
for determining financial measures. Others suggest that the only
measure that executive management cares about is market share. As
long as the product sells, there is no desire to segment out those
elements that were most critical to its success.
As a result, brand identity design is inexorably merged with advertising,
sales incentives, retailer programs, and all other means of brand
promotion with no understanding of the contribution that each makes
toward brand success. This inherently undermines design’s
paramount value among all brand communications efforts.
New Hope, New Respect
Certainly it’s not all gloom and doom for corporate design
management. Cost-cutting efforts will soon prove to be cuts too
deep. The pendulum having swung too far in one direction will eventually
change its course, but not without the diligent effort of those
dedicated design leaders who prove their value everyday. Those who
document and promote a best practice, who fight for the autonomy
to initiate and manage the process, who win more control over project
budgets, who encourage marketing to share the design decision process,
and who find ways to track design’s paramount return on investment
will succeed. And when they do, corporate design management will
regain the support and respect that it so rightly deserves.
For more information on proven methods for
tracking design’s return on investment, please contact Rob
Wallace, Rob@wallacechurch.com
or 212-755-2903.
Rob Wallace is managing partner of Wallace
Church Inc., a Manhattan-based, global brand strategy and package
design consultancy.
Working with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Unilever,
Kodak and over three dozen leading consumer product corporations,
Wallace Church optimizes brand perception strategy and then implements
it through sales-effective package design and in-store brand presence.
Rob frequently lectures at industry events
and senior level MBA programs at Columbia, Georgetown, and other
leading universities. Rob is a contributing author in several books
on brand identity. He has also served as an expert witness on legal
cases involving trade dress legislation.
This article appeared in the May 2004
eBulletin.
Feedback on DMI Viewpoints and article proposals
are always welcome! Please email jtobin@dmi.org.
All articles reflect the opinion of the author and not the Design
Management Institute.
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