KCDM: Designing Advantages, Building Trust and Changing Culture

For decades following Slovenian independence in 1991, the country had no national design policy. Ways of understanding, employing and managing design were down to individual companies. Due to lack of knowledge and relevant examples, their efforts were neither systematic nor strategic. As a result, Slovenian companies fell behind in the fast-developing global markets. The state made several attempts to support companies but lacked the in-depth insight into their needs; instead of enhancing the potential of the most ambitious companies, they instead focused on helping struggling companies to survive. There was no support in place for boosting the potential winners.

In 2013 a team of business people and designers brainstormed an idea on how to better integrate design into businesses. An opportunity for its realisation arose with a call for competence centers by the Slovenian Ministry of Labour (MLFSAEO) and the EU Social Fund. The team formed a partnership of 17 companies, developed a competence model with structured training and KPIs. With their plan they successfully secured funding. KCDM’s mission was to increase the value of design, focus on monitoring, knowledge gathering and sharing to yield tangible benefits for its companies and ultimately impact on the national economy.

The programme impact was evaluated after 2.5 years using business indicators of the participant companies, such as increase in added value, net earnings, employment, market share or sales. For its competence model, KCDM won the prestigious Design Value Award 2016 from the Design Management Institute, USA. Together both achievements led to 2 subsequent upgraded editions of the KCDM programme commissioned by the Slovenian Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport, from 2017-2023. Increased awareness about the benefits of design on a wider scale seeded the development of new government funded programmes and introduction of Design Management as a university subject.

The project team designed and adapted several methodologies to form an effective, comprehensive, user-friendly and scalable framework: ·KCDM’s proprietary Competence Model; based on the Design Management Staircase model and complemented by integrating key job profiles. ·Systematic evaluation and data analysis; for monitoring the results of each company (design diagnostics) and the overall group performance with Business Design Intelligence reports which benchmark the KCDM companies against high growth EU companies. ·Systematic onboarding; individual development and training plans customised for each partner. ·Intensive courses and training; led by renowned international experts and tailored to Slovene specifics. 65 companies from different industries and sizes, 18.000 participations in over 3,500 training sessions over a decade with an overall budget of €2,800,000. ·Knowledge exchange; included cross-company workshops, focus groups, presentations, individual in-house mentoring and consultancy. Organisation of 6 international design management conferences and visiting international events. ·KCDM – GROW Alumni Network consisting of over 150 individuals offering mutual support and acting as ambassadors for the programme. Each consecutive KCDM edition was upgraded with the latest global design trends in service design, in-depth design research, sustainability models, design innovations and social skills important for successful multidisciplinary team work.