About the author:
Scott Henderson, Director of Industrial Design, Smart Design, has worked for some of the largest corporations in America. This work has generated numerous awards and media attention. From The New York Times to Business Week's GOLD IDEA award, from 50 patents in the USA and Europe to exhibitions at the Smithsonian, Guggenheim, and Museum of Applied Arts in Munich, Scott exhibits design excellence.
Scott told me, he believes that if something makes you smile it becomes easier to use. Such a simple statement, yet profound when you consider that numerous cultures have embraced his view of design. He travels from New York City to work with clients in Asian countries - loving his work - and, yes, loving working in Asia!
Smart Design's foreign client relationships have grown and consistent marketing activities have positioned them as global design leaders. Of interest to my international readers who have yet to rise to the global challenge and have not identified their own successful positioning in our " New World," Smart Design has built a strong, global business.
I choose design business leaders for these " Design Business" Articles. Scott Henderson is truly a global design leader. Scott has the pioneer spirit to venture into the unknown, discover new business opportunities and light the route for others. Through this article, Scott particularly challenges industrial designers to get on a plane and go to the land of opportunities. Scott's positive business outlook is vitally important as we review our own short and long-term strategic plans. For most of my readers, in various disciplines, I recommend that you seriously consider his advice. Contact Scott Henderson at scott@smartdesignusa.com.
Contact Linda Fisher
---Linda Fisher, President, Design Management Resources.
at Linda-marketing-pr@snet.net.
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"Designed"
in
Taiwan
By Scott Henderson
Once the venue for global manufacturing, recent investments in education, technology, research, economic development, and international promotion are transforming countries such as Malaysia, China, India, and Taiwan into places executives turn to for design innovation. Scott Henderson describes this Asian Renaissance and suggests that it presents a challenge, as well as an opportunity, for Western design firms.
During the Renaissance, an emerging middle class began to question conventional thinking, in part because information had become very accessible as a result of technologies such as the printing press. Individual achievement, entrepreneurship, scientific inquiry, and new wealth set the stage for the Renaissance to match and even surpass the achievements of classical Greece and ancient Rome.
Bearing this in mind, you might want to ask yourself a few questions. For instance: Where in our world is the vast majority of manufacturing taking place? Where has the Internet played a major role in the proliferation of a global design aesthetic? Where have entrepreneurship and new wealth created the fastest-growing and secondlargest economy in the world over the shortest period of time? If you had to take a stab at which region in the world will dominate design in the future, what would your guess be? Welcome to Asia. Welcome to design's new Renaissance!
It is no secret that countries like Taiwan, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, and Thailand seem to be following similar paths to that of Japan in the evolution of their manufacturing and in its relation to their economies. What many people may not be as familiar with is the notion that design in Asia is undergoing a surge of interest that seems to be gathering steam.
Design in Asia is being incorporated into the product-development process at the factory itself, and large foreign corporations are funneling work to the Far East to shorten product development timelines and increase efficiency. In many cases, design services are being rolled into development costs right along with the tooling, a trend of which the consultant designer should be well aware. Do these trends represent a threat to the design industry as we know it, or are they incredible new opportunities for collaboration?
Have you ever noticed that the location of certain businesses is strategically decided based on the fact that the chosen site will contribute to increased profitability and efficiency? In a shopping mall, for instance, you will find diverse businesses ranging from clothing to housewares, and you'll also find clusters of businesses that support these retailers-purveyors of fast food, say. Competing businesses operate in harmony with one another because together they generate greater efficiencies. Bicycle stores are often located near the park and bail bondsmen near the county jail, so why don't you find designers and engineers near the factories? Well, in Asia, you do. Probably the most profound examples of the proliferation of design in Asia are taking place in Taiwan. The Taiwanese government has been supporting a plan to set up large design centers on the island. According to the Taiwan Economic News, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has been promoting a plan to persuade multinational corporations to set up "innovation R&D centers."1 The China Post reports that Microsoft Corporation has decided to establish an Asia-Pacific technical service center in Taiwan and will "beef up cooperation with Taiwan enterprises in both hardware and software products."2 Hewlett-Packard also has plans to build and run a product design center in Taiwan, which "…will help Taiwan's IT industry to upgrade and focus its major strength on R&D rather than its current [OEM] production."3 The new center will complement HP's existing Asia Low-Cost Design Center, thus taking advantage of the island's strengths in product design and research and development. These centers allow HP to involve the local OEMs at a much earlier stage, and to compress the product-development timelines dramatically. Other giant offshore corporations are following suit.Motorola (also according to the China Post) has announced plans to build an Asia Manufacturing Research Center in Beijing. Dell Computer established a research and development center on the island earlier this year, primarily for its laptop computer line. Dell's center now has more than 50 research and development personnel, and product development time has been reduced by at least a month. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has also approved plans for an IBM technology center, a Taiwanrun Mobile Commerce Research and Development Center, and an Advanced Mixed-Mode Signal Integrated Circuit Development Center for Pericom. In addition, a second Dell product development center is under way and an R&D headquarters for Sony IT products is currently undergoing review. Officials expect 70 such establishments to appear in Taiwan within the next four years, and it is likely that at least 70 percent of their staffing needs will be filled by local personnel.4 One implication of this is that Taiwan is coming to the same conclusions that Hong Kong arrived at 10 years ago when trying to figure out how it could stay competitive when its OEM manufacturing had to move offshore, where cheaper labor was more plentiful. As profit margins are decimated by increased competition from other countries, innovative design is the necessary path to follow. Professor Yanta Lam of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University notes that "the solution is to pursue a design-driven strategy and produce original value-added products."5 This notion is one that the Taiwan government has fully embraced. Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development recently approved a proposal to set up a national design center in Taipei, according to the Taiwan Economic News, which quoted CEPD vice president Ho Mei-Yueh as predicting that "the center will lead to 100 percent growth in the number of people engaged in creative design services."6 Okay--so Taiwan is building up its focus on design, and large American corporations are building design centers there to be close to the manufacturers. What about the rest of Asia? The answer is that this phenomenon is emphatically not limited to Taiwan. In fact, the need to bolster original design and take part in the new Asian design renaissance seems to be sweeping the region. Take Malaysia, another country very concerned with staying on the power curve when it comes to design innovation. According to a recent article in Business Times Malaysia, "The [Malaysian] government will implement a Human Resources Development Grant" to bolster the country's R&D specialized workers. 7 Hong Kong's plans are similar; its Trade Development Council advocates support for creative industries and is continually emphasizing their importance. Creative Technologies Ltd. was founded in Singapore in 1981. It began as a successful OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of PC audio sound cards and eventually made the transition to the role of ODM (original design manufacturer), partnering with some of the world's leading DVD, computer telephony integration (CTI), communications, and videoconferencing technology companies. Now Creative Technologies is a successful brand in and of itself, known for its Nomad MP3 players, speakers, and other products. Creative Technologies was able to do this through a commitment to design; it has always employed many industrial designers in-house, but it has also solicited the help of US design firms. "This is a trend that will continue," says Jason Deng of the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA)."Most of the international companies, such as Apple Computer,Motorola, Compaq, and others, partner with Asian ODMs for their product development needs. To highlight success stories in this area is very difficult because these relationships are considered highly confidential. However, as the ODMs gain experience doing soup-to-nuts product development, they will naturally begin branding and marketing their own products."8 Some have their doubts, though, because of the serious hurdles these companies face as they attempt to move in this direction. According to Reiko Tomasch, an analyst at Gartner Dataquest, in San Jose, "To support a global market, the ODMs need a global footprint," because "few ODMs have plants outside the Asia Pacific region."After all, "ODMs can't send everything back to Asia for repair. They will need repair operations in regions like Europe." 9
However, despite the hurdles, this approach is still being pursued. It's a trend that represents enormous opportunities for international design firms to collaborate with fast-growing Asian businesses. To gain a competitive stance, ODMs trying to follow the example of a company like Creative Technologies will be increasingly reaching out for collaborative design projects with international design firms. As a result, US designers can expect a lot more clients from countries like China and Taiwan. To illustrate: I recently met with Nick Young, who works for NovaTrend, a Chicago-based company with offices in Taipei. NovaTrend specializes in connecting Western businesses with opportunities in the East. As Young pointed out, "The mere presence of large international product development centers in the region creates new opportunities for the cross-pollination of ideas and opportunities between Asia and international corporations."
We have already seen how Asian companies are moving from their original emphasis on manufacturing components for the products of Western countries to become enterprises that generate and own products and the intellectual properties of those products and either license them to the external customer or market them themselves. But there is another major reason why design is experiencing a boom in Asia. That reason is--China. If you want to go shopping, you go to the mall!
The evolution revolution
Mammoth markets
The boom in Asian design education
As the Asian economy continues to drive interest in design, design education has also experienced massive growth throughout the region. According to CETRA's Jason Deng, on the relatively small island of Taiwan, "there are more than 20 colleges and universities with industrial design departments, and about 2,000 ID graduates each year."13 This may be a conservative estimate. A 2001 article in Asia-Pacific News estimates there are more than 400 schools offering design-related courses in China.14 To put these numbers in perspective, consider that the United States offers fewer than 100 accredited product design programs, according to the National Association of Schools for Art and Design and the Industrial Designer's Society of America.15 Or think of it this way: Taiwan has more design schools available to its population than the United States by an almost 3:1 ratio. Consider also that many of these United States colleges and universities have a large number of Asian students attending their design programs on student visas. Many of them return to their home countries to work after graduation, adding to the design talent and depth of knowledge in the Pacific Rim.Perhaps one of the most important developments regarding design in Asia is the sheer awareness of it and of its value by the governments and the universities in the region. By contrast, in the United States, designers must spend lots of time communicating what we do, who we are, and why we're important. Augusto Picozza, corporate industrial design manager for Sunbeam Products, offered this advice recently on a panel discussion he participated in at the Plastics Encounter trade show exhibition in Indianapolis: "Get your story straight on what you do and how you fit into the product development cycle, because you will need to explain that for the rest of your life." In Asia, the very fiber of the continued economic growth of the region hinges on design innovation; its value is engrained.
Or think of it this way: There are approximately 15,000 to 20,000 industrial designers working in the United States (a rough estimate, provided by IDSA). Compare that to our 1,049,751 lawyers (according to the American Bar Association), and one may draw the conclusion that here in America, industrial designers are a mere ink-spot of a profession in the grand scheme of things.
No permit required
There is a fierce entrepreneurial spirit in Asia that contributes to the recent interest in design as the impetus fueling this innovation renaissance. In my travels to Asia to oversee production processes, I have witnessed this entrepreneurial spirit firsthand. On one of my trips, I visited a factory that was producing a product I had designed. There are extremely high-tech factories in Asia and extremely low-tech ones, and if this one were any lower it would have been subterranean.
There were the injection-molding machines, only two, on the partially-dirt garage floor of the manufacturer's residential home, cranking out my part at a feverish clip. Next to the big 100-ton press was his child's bicycle, and next to that, leaning against the wall, were a hula hoop and a kiddie pool. All of this was stored in harmony with the 50-pound bags of polypropylene pellets. Low-tech or not, this factory was able to crank out the production run very efficiently, making enough parts to fill orders in every Bed Bath & Beyond in North America!What does this mean for western designers?
Should design industries in other parts of the world be worried about product design moving closer to manufacturing centers in Asia? Consider this question in the light of supply and demand. If the need for design remains constant and the number of designers trying to satisfy that need doubles or quadruples, that might be cause for concern. However, it is the demand for design that has quadrupled in this case, creating the need for more designers, as well as opportunity for the designers who are already here. Do lawyers lose sleep because there are too many lawyers? No. Does McDonald's build its restaurant as far away from Burger King as possible because they are afraid of the competition? No. They build their restaurant right next door, because that way they can feed off the increased traffic of customers. Fueling a market causes the market to expand exponentially. More designers and the need for more design mean a healthier design industry across the board. Designers in the US and other parts of the world should be booking plane tickets right now and heading off to Asia with their portfolios in hand. They should be exhibiting at places like TIDEX-the Taipei International Design Exhibition. Instead of making the pilgrimage to Las Vegas once a year for the Consumer Electronics Show, how about attending the Taipei International Electronics Show? They will be sure to return with a few new clients. Sure, there is logic in the notion that moving design close to the factory can generate efficiencies. For certain communications and IT products, this might make perfect sense. There is also logic behind the idea that the perfect place for a design firm would be smack in the middle of Manhattan or another thriving metropolis, because of the intense cultural and artistic inspiration that abounds there. There is no one specific formula that produces success, and there is room in this tiny profession for 1,000-percent growth. In fact, it's badly needed. The challenge for design industries in Asia, as it is for the rest of the world, will be to focus not only on producing products with speed and efficiency, but also on producing products that meet the needs of the people who use them. This is the reason many international designers and design consultancies are skeptical and continue to hold preconceived notions about the quality of Asian design. I recently purchased a new "bouncy seat" for my four-month-old child. One thing that a four-month-old child likes to do is kick her feet. She kicks and kicks as if it is the best possible way for her little body to get exercise. The designers of this new seat that I bought observed that babies do this, and they put sensors under the area that receives the most kicks, so that little lights and sounds emanate from the seat. Genius!! My baby loves it! The question is: Would this kind of innovation based on observation happen if the design of this baby seat took place close to the factory, or would it be more likely to come from a less limited vantage point? The concern would be that the designers of the seat might be more concerned with what the factory could easily make with the shortest possible production timeline--and that is a goal that would very much conflict with the goal of innovation for a competitive edge.Think about the "country of origin" mark that all imported goods are required to have. It's a mark that more often than not functions as a "brand label."What kind of perceptions does "Designed in Taiwan" or "Designed in China" conjure up in our minds? As Roger Renstrom wrote in a recent article for Plastics News, "Design has not been [Asia's] strong suit. Manufacturers there have a reputation for duplicating existing products, not designing new ones."16 Similarly, according to Professor Matthew Turner of Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, "Hong Kong was for many years dubbed a cultural desert and associated with imitation."17
These perceptions may be prevalent still, but I believe that Asia's surge of interest in design will eventually shift them.We once thought of the "Made in Japan" marking as something related to inexpensive goods, and then we thought the same of the "Made in Taiwan" mark, and we probably still think that way of the "Made in China" mark.
All things change, however, and when they do, we're usually surprised that we didn't see it coming. My guess is that the perception of "Designed in Taiwan" will soon change at the same pace as Taiwan's evolving reputation as a manufacturing center--a pace that is gathering tremendous speed.
Acknowledgements: This article was first published in Design Management Journal Vol. 14, No. 2
Fusing Design, Strategy and Technology Notes: 1. Taiwan Economic News, Sept. 25, 2002, p. 4. 2. Michelle Hsu, The China Post, October 22, 2002, p. 8. 3. Ibid., p. 8. 4. Taiwan Economic News, op cit. 5. Yanta Lam, "Product Design in Hong Kong: Its characteristics, development, and revelation," Xpress Vol. 4, 2002, Hong Kong Designers Association.
6. Taiwan Economic News, November 5, 2002, p.3. 7. Malcolm Rosario, "Call to Tap R&D Grant," Business Times (Malaysia), Sept. 29, 2003, p. 3.
8. Jason Deng, Design Information Section, report to China External Trade Development Council, Nov. 7, 2002.
9. CMP Media Inc., EBN:21, Sept. 30, 2002. 10. CMP Media Inc., op. cit. 11. D.S.Madhumathi and Anjali Prayag, "The Shape of
Things to Come," Asia-Pacific News, Dec. 10, 2001.
12. Ibid. 13. Jason Deng, op. cit. 14. Asia-Pacific News, op. cit. 15. See www.idsa.org 16. Roger Renstrom, "Overseas Firms Developing Design
Capacity," Plastics News, Aug. 12, 2002.
17. Matthew Turner, "Does Hong Kong Need More
Design Education?" Express, vol. 4, 2002, p. 13.
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