With the market being ultra-competitive and high on style, it is not enough to just have a good product—it has to score good on looks too
What is it that makes the consumers choose one product over the other? What are the reasons? Where does the difference lie?
Mukund Bhogale, Managing Director, Nirlep Appliances explains: "The difference lies in product designing. The markets have been getting competitive and most products tend to be ‘me-too’ products in the market. A professional product designer can deliver a better design in terms of consumer usage by adding on small features that make the product more marketable and give it a competitive edge."
Nirlep, a familiar name in the non-stick cookware and accessories market, realized the importance of good product design way back in 1968 and has been using the services of Elephant Strategy + Design, a Pune-based design firm for the last 15 years.
Since the company deals in a segment where the overall shape of the products is very similar for all the brands, Nirlep extensively uses design of handles, grips, etc to differentiate its products. For instance, one of their pressure cookers has a place on the knob to park the spatula so that it does not touch the usually unclean kitchen platform!
| DARE/eye on design? keep this in mind |
Good design does not come cheap. |
Design is as much a philosophy as it is a process. |
It is important that all stakeholders be actively involved right from start. |
Each product influences the overall brand and the brand in turn influences the product design. |
| The design has to be evaluated for cost as well as the price the market can bear. |
| Manufacturing capability to execute the final design is critical. |
| Once you have finalized the design get it registered. |
| The rights to the design belong to the client and not to the designer. Ensure that this is clearly agreed to right at the beginning. |
When the economy opened up, it paved the way for global players to enter the Indian market. The common Indian realized that there is a lot more he/she could add to his/her life. And the fast-emerging competition forced the Indian companies to realize that in order to survive more was needed, in terms of better features, excellent product interface, impeccable quality, and appealing styling.
The Indian experience has been a new lesson for foreign companies that entered India with their products. They realized that in order to sell their goods in India, their products and their design needed to be in tune with the Indian customer’s psyche.
Deepali Saini, Director of Think Design, whose clients include Whirlpool and Marico, talks about the increasing recognition for product design. "We are moving more and more towards a consumerist society. Earlier it was simpler, you either had copies of imported products or you imported them. Now most of the international brands are present here, and they are not just importing their products and dumping them on Indians. They are selling their products to Indians and so they want their products to be specifically designed for the Indian market."
How to go about it
A designer today comes into the picture as soon as an idea is conceived. Says Pradyumna Vyas, Chairman of Educaton, NID, "How is a brand established? With design. Brand and design, you can’t separate them. For a product, brand is very important, like for Mercedes or Titan. In the making of a brand design becomes very important. It’s a packaged deal. If you say Philips is a good brand it means that Philips is providing a good service, good technology and a good design."
A company looking to get a product designed starts with a marketing brief to the design company, which includes a rough sketch of the requirements of the product. The design firm then takes it up and usually does its own design research in the market to study how consumers will react to the product, which colors are selling more in the market, why are certain shapes preferred by the consumers, etc. That forms the groundwork of a design project.
Says Saini, "We start from scratch and the actual design comes at a later stage. We conduct a competitive study, a marketing survey, a consumer study, etc. All this is much before the drawing board stage. We might also suggest some more features for which certain technology has to be developed or certain engineering has to be done. All this process, though, is done hand-in-hand with the engineering department of the client."
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Vikram, August 20, 2009
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
