Paper info

Gaining More Benefits of Design: An Analysis of Relationships in Buying Industrial Design Services, a Finnish Perspective

Asta Salmi and Virva Haltsonen

The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

 The aim of this study is to analyze the buying practices and expectations of customer companies buying design services. Design-oriented companies are studied to understand how a sporadic project-based utilization has been transferred into deep cooperative relationships. The research concentrates on industrial design consultancies, although the consultancies usually offer adjacent, supporting services to the clients. A longitudinal, empirical study concentrates on Suunto Ltd. The analysis is complemented with interviews of the cooperating design consultancies. Suunto has an established design function and has combined in-house design and external design consultancies, making design one of its key competitive elements. This paper supplements earlier IMP studies by analysing a new area of services: industrial design. Analysis of the buying practices in design services and the client-design consultancy - relations shows that in this context relationship endurance is a prerequisite for increased benefits in the cooperation between a client customer and a design consultancy. Design can be a considerable element in innovation creation and provide strong competitive elements to companies utilizing design. While design is primarily an outsourced activity in Finland, the client firm-design consultancy -relationship should be studied on an inter-organizational level to grasp the benefits of the cooperative practises, e.g. strategic level input and access to specialist knowledge.