What is Better by Design?

It’s a programme of practical support and assistance to help New Zealand companies apply design principles across their business. The end goal of Better by Design is for New Zealand companies to generate more export sales by selling better-designed products and services. Better by Design launched as a fully-fledged programme during the Better by Design conference in March 2005.

Better by Design is part of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and is based out of Auckland. 

How can design improve my business performance?

Properly applied, design can give you a sustainable competitive advantage, help you command a price premium, gain market share and even reduce production costs.

Design does not just mean the aesthetic, a finishing touch to make something look better. It’s about design-led thinking – a more complex, collaborative and integrated approach to producing the very best products and services with a meaningful point of difference.

Companies that are truly design-led have developed (and protected) valuable intellectual property that cannot be easily taken up by a competitor, unpicked and replicated. That is the value of great design thinking.

What does Better by Design actually do?

Better by Design provides a number of programmes and initiatives that aim to help companies improve their design capability. As a longer-term strategy, Better by Design is also working with the academic and design communities to raise the level of knowledge and understanding about design integration. Key Better by Design initiatives include: 

This is the main initiative from Better by Design. Available to companies who meet the selection criteria and gain approval, the Design Integration Programme is a six-stage design journey that takes an in-depth look at how design can be most effectively applied to boost competitive advantage. This incorporates what was previously known as the design audit – now renamed as the Design 360 assessment and it is followed by a focused Design 360 planning stage. The six stages are select, assess, plan, resource, execute and extend.

Design Integration Funding

Design Integration Funding available to companies who have completed the Design 360 assessment and planning stage of the Design Integration Programme. Funding is on a 50/50 basis. It is a capability building fund and can be used for projects aligned to business strategy, brand strategy or product development.

This is a practical guide to finding an appropriate design partner. Search capabilities allow you to look for design companies and consultants across various disciplines and sectors, and view relevant case studies.

Executive Education programmes

Profit by Design is the main executive workshop offered currently. They are practical two day seminars for staff across all parts of a business to attend and learn about being a design integrated  company.

We also offer seminars on topics of critical business importance to our clients and partners. These are held throughout the year.

Building design capability

Better by Design is involved in developing and implementing a longer-term strategy to build New Zealand’s design capability. This includes involving the academic community in the design-led conversation to work towards ensuring design and engineering students understand business and business students understand design. It also involves working to encourage expat designers back to New Zealand to share their knowledge and working with the design community to raise the level of knowledge and skill in design integration.

Why is the Government investing in design through Better by Design?

Better by Design is a result of the Government’s Design Taskforce report “Success by Design”, which was published in May 2003 and launched in October 2003 (you can read it online at www.nzte.govt.nz). The Design Taskforce concluded that better use of design by our exporters could result in considerable economic growth for New Zealand.

The Design Taskforce (which consisted of designers and business leaders) pointed out that design was an area where New Zealand should have natural advantages because of our good education system, spirit of innovation, cultural diversity and sense of teamwork. Other countries such as the UK, Finland, Ireland and Hong Kong had taken a similar approach and had considerable success.

The Taskforce set an ambitious target: “to have 50 companies made internationally competitive through becoming design capable, generating an additional $500 million in export revenue within five years, and growing at five times the annual GDP.”

Early in 2004 a Better by Design team was established, operating as a division of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.  The team is responsible for operational delivery of the programme and promotion of the strategy to export-focused businesses and the design community. The programme was publicly kicked off in March 2005 at the Better by Design conference in Auckland.

Better by Design is overseen by an independent group of design-led business experts who sit on the Better by Design Advisory Board. 

The Advisory Board is chaired by Jeremy Moon of Icebreaker and members include Rick Wells, Chairman of Formway Furniture; Richard Cutfield, Executive Director of Pencarrow Private Equity; Mark Elmore, Industrial Design Manager at Fisher and Paykel; Jonathan Custance, founder of multi-disciplinary design consultancy, Custance; and Stefan Preston of Director of Ingenio.

Is there funding available?

Companies who have completed the Design 360 assessment and planning process, as part of the six-stage Design Integration Programme, are able to apply for Design Integration Funding. This is provided on a 50/50 basis to help with design projects and design integration activity.  

What is the criteria for getting into the programme?

Your firm should be able to meet all of the following criteria:

• Design Impact - a unique product or service, with global growth potential, in existence or being developed
• Scale - annual turnover of group sales to external parties exceeds $20m *
• Exports - Net foreign exchange earnings exceeding 20% of turnover
• Scalability - a willingness and capacity to significantly grow high gross margin revenue
• CEO & Board commitment - aspiration, capacity and commitment to becoming a global design leading company
• Opening learning culture - evidence of engaging leadership and an open learning culture
• Stability - an equity ratio of at least 30% plus a willingness to take on additional equity if required

* an exceptional and fast growing company with a lower turnover may be accepted at the discretion of Better by Design

Who are the Design 360 teams?

There are three accredited Design 360 teams who carry out the assessment and planning stages of the Design Integration Programme.

DThree

DThree is lead by Deloitte. Deloitte takes a collaborative approach to bringing the right resources to providing value to client engagements through challenging their current application of design to future proof their business. They do this through the design specialist capabilities of pHd3 and Object Design and the analytic, strategy, organisation and process skills of Deloitte. This delivers a design ready assessment to provide clients with a platform to develop and leverage their current design capability to deliver profitable business growth.

Brian R Richards Ltd & Associates

The BRR & Associates is a consortia including New Zealand's leading business and brand strategist Brian R Richards Ltd and product design & innovation advisors Shape Design Ltd. The team includes noted brand strategist Brian Richards, business strategy and brand expert Julian Smith, business strategy expert from Auckland University Dr S. W. Michael Lee and Bryn Chapple, a long standing New Zealand expert on innovation, product developed and end- user centred research. 

Equip

Equip is a design integration consultancy involving: Ray Labone, a brand positioning consultant from Utiliti Design; Peter Haythornthwaite, an industrial design consultant from creativelab and Andrew Jones, a mechanical engineer and production process consultant. Equip’s focus is integrating world best practice design thinking into company culture, strategy and capabilities.

If I have already received funding from another NZTE programme, can I become involved in Better by Design?

You can become involved with Better by Design regardless of whether you have received funding from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise before, as long as you meet the criteria detailed above. Contact us for more information.