Owner-managers think design is just about a product and its styling or visual application. It takes a while for them to understand that it is the design of the business they are dealing with.

Questions to consider are:

1. How you perceive the business

2. How you present yourselves to clients. This ranges from signage outside the offices to the reception area and stationery – right into the very heart of operations.

Crucially, problems arise when too many assumptions are made about what customers want. For example, the Sinclair C5. It was both ugly and a bad idea. Although it launched on time and looked far prettier than when it was originally designed by the engineers, it was a colossally bad idea. The reason it failed was to do with all kinds of intuitive things, like how safe you feel, and you can rationalise them until the cows come home, but people are people and they know what they want and like.

Market leading and market led

Research by the Design Council shows that 83 per cent of companies which regard design and innovation as essential have seen their market share increase, compared to the UK average of 46 per cent. Moreover, these companies are releasing new products constantly finding new ways to freshen their appeal to customers.

Take Costa Coffee for example. There is a lot of point of sale material in the shops which articulate exactly why they are better and how they make better coffee. Not least, the clever bit of advertising that recently swept the world after Costa revealed it master of coffee’s tongue had been insured for £10 million.

The company that everyone points to as the shining light of design is Apple. The Steve Jobs’ defining quality has been to foster that relentless drive to be both new and utilitarian. All the Apple clones are interesting. There are a lot of companies, particularly in Asia, which are trying to actually sell stuff which copies Apple and getting it wrong and failing. Compare that to a phone like the Palm Pre, which doesn’t looking anything like an Apple iPhone, but was created by a guy who used to work for Apple and knows the culture. They haven’t tried to copy the look. They have applied best practice in business as it is applied by Apple – and it works.

Author David Bowler is co-founder of Incisive Edge [solutions] www.incisive-edge.com, leaders in creating and building company value through sustainable competitive advantage. Contact them on growth@incisive-edge.com or call 0800 433 4044