Building a design consultancy for the future

With markets and industries changing at speed, any business that can’t adapt will be passed by. Our answer is to build a hybrid design consultancy. We’d like to share how we’re getting ready for everything that’s next.

The very near future beckons and with it, a demand for businesses to adjust and adapt or get left behind. Industry boundaries are changing, new eco-systems are emerging and formerly well-defined customer journeys are dissolving. We’re entering a new era with never seen before potential. The isolated brands, products and service ecosystems of yesterday will be replaced with radically interconnected ones tomorrow. Markets and technologies move fast, the bar keeps rising. To stay ahead, businesses have to deliver highly modular and easy-to-integrate products and services. They have to compete on more than relevance, by delivering products and services that resonate with the shifting demands and values of the future. Adapting to issues such as environmental degradation and tech addiction will be paramount for businesses and consumers alike, creating a demand for integrated sustainability.

Helping businesses deliver on these and many other demands represents a significant business potential for designers and for design consultancies, as well as for third parties seeing the business potential of design. This is evident in the number of design consultancies acquired by non-design corporations. Today the extra resources may help satisfy a client, but tomorrow client and corporate demands may differ. As technology advances, client demands will change. And with this, consultancies will be challenged on how to adapt. With the speed at which markets and technologies are changing, situations will arise where external ownership will force some consultancies to choose between core values and corporate goals. This begs the question, are they ready to design with the innovation and adaptability that is required for this time and era?

If not, the market will pass them by.

Independence to adapt

For consultancies to stay ahead they have to safeguard the ability to fluidly adapt. Business opportunities are gained through adaptability and constant exploration. Delivering continual adaptation requires a design consultancy that has the courage to constantly question industry truths. These questions cannot be asked without full independence.

Independence to define and share company values.

Independence to set your own ambitions.

Independence to disrupt when needed.

Independence to design for continual adaptation.

The Hybrid Strategic Design Consultancy

We’re not constrained by external corporate demands, nor by long term goals that might not be relevant tomorrow. Instead, we respond to the answers we find when questioning how the world evolves.

Our approach to growth is strategic and acquisitive. We grow as a hybrid consultancy by expanding as markets and industries change. Based on the skills required to stay adaptive and our shared values, we plan to invite the brightest design teams to join our venture, with a view to mix and merge creativity, technology, business and strategy.

This is the essence of our ambition and our vision for the future. To have design execution at our core, and help shape the future paths of businesses. We work with our clients to define their vision, help them build capabilities, create adaptive solutions and design world-class touchpoints. Our strategies are experimental and moulded for rapid release. When we execute, we are precise, lean, fast and our solutions and strategies have built-in scalability.

We’ve set out on a journey to build a new type of design consultancy. We already number 70 forward-focused, people-first and rapid results-driven makers, innovators and strategists. We’re specialists in digital, industrial and strategic design — and we’re looking to expand. We’re conceived in Scandinavia, but born global. Our inherent design values combined with our independence fosters a culture of continual adaptation enabling rapid design execution. This is how we’ll be navigating the great beyond. Presently, as Strategic Design Group. Soon as a unified, single brand under a new name. Ready for everything that’s next. Stay tuned.

Strategic Design Group has been relaunched as Manyone — The strategy-design hybrid. You can find further thoughts on the future of design at Manyone.com and you can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and here on Medium.