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Wednesday, 12 December 2007 | Levent OZLER
Design Management Europe Award to Nurus
Design Management Europe Awards, a project of the European Union, have been announced. From among the 230 companies from 18 countries, Nurus was one of the nominees selected for the award. Being a worldwide recognized brand with its design management strategy, Nurus has now added another one to its international awards.
Launched with the idea that the contribution of design to commercial success is undervalued, the DME Award aims at strengthening "innovation in design management" through the organization developed by it under the name of ADMIRE under the 6th Framework Project of the European Union. DME announced at the award ceremony held on November 22 the results of the competition it held this year for the first time to select the best ones of those companies creating difference through their design management strategies.
The competing companies were evaluated under six categories: micro, small, medium and large scale businesses in terms of turnover and the number of employees; non-profit organizations and "newcomers." Nurus, a company in the furniture sector, was nominated by ABIGEM Izmir (the European Union Business Development Center) from Turkey and competed in the "Medium-Scale Businesses" category.
"Nowadays, everybody thinks the keyword is design. However, at Nurus, the magic word is 'marketing'. Marketing offers a problem definition to design. Shaping a company and making industrial production requires good design managers who can conceive current global rules, and identify and turn requirements into product ideas. Design management is a matter of patient efforts," comments Renan Gökyay, Vice Chairman at Nurus, which has become a globally recognized brand name owing to its right initiatives in design management. He also pointed out the necessity of different formulas for different scales in design management, "You create an industrial product. Scale is vital for that. In fact, scale economies are already pivotal throughout the world. In designing an investment to make and sell 200,000 tables per year as the minimum profitable level, you have a long list of many main headlines, which you have to review in respect of scale. A design manager must be versed in any detail included in this list."
The launch of the DME Awards, project coordinator of which is the Eindhoven Municipality, took place at the International Design Conference held on June 7, 2007 in Eindhoven. Nominated companies were invited to submit their presentations, describing their activities and corporate structures, until July 30. A long period of evaluation and waiting which lasted for about 4 months started after submission of the presentations. According to a statement by DME, the jury recognizes "the skills and leadership of management to implement design in their business for commercial success. Companies and organizations are challenged to apply for the DME Award by demonstrating how design is integrated in their business processes, management, and strategy to achieve commercial gains."
The award ceremony of the competition where there were also companies nominated from Turkey took place at the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen, Germany: a museum occupying an area of 4000 square meters, displaying over 1000 designs from every part of the world and visited by 120,000 people per year. The award ceremony started after the cocktail held in a building converted from an old mine pit. In delivering a speech at the opening of the DME award ceremony Professor Dr. Peter Zec, President of Red Dot, started by emphasizing the importance of creating brand value: "You must create value in order to create a brand. Raising brand value is much harder than raising your turnover, but once you do it properly, you could enjoy figures even beyond your dreams. Design is either a corporate strategy at a company or not. Those who integrate design in their strategies are those who succeed in creating brand value," commented Mr. Zec and carried on with a simple, yet impressive example: "You put on a garment. And another person also puts on the same garment, but it does not fit him as good as it does you. This is a matter of how you carry that garment and of the value you add to it. Creating a brand through design is just like that." Mr. Zec concluded his speech by congratulating the nominees that had the courage to share even most proprietary corporate information on their presentations.
The Design Management Europe Awards are mainly characterized by the rule that companies may not register on their own initiative. The companies can be nominated by 14 partners of Design Management Europe in 18 countries. Besides the worldwide prestige brought to them, award winners of the competition where the award jury evaluates nominees with regard to the principles of leadership in innovation, ability to keep up with changes and excellence in design management become part of a network with consistently updated knowledge in the expanding sector. This year, 200 companies from Spain, Germany, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, the UK, Austria, Finland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Poland are participated to the competition.
After the opening speeches, the winners were presented with their awards at the ceremony. Attending the ceremony, Hakan Akbulut, Consul General of Turkey in Essen, congratulated participating companies, expressing his pleasure, on behalf of Turkey, in the fact that the competing companies from Turkey had won awards. The dinner organized at the museum after the ceremony so that the winners could meet included 'how important it was for Turkey to compete with the EU Member States at such a platform' among its main topics of conversations.
Of 44 award-winning companies of various scales, the winner's award in the "Large-Scale Businesses" category went to Loewe, the first runner up's award to Festo and the second runner up's to BSH Group(Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group). During the two years showcases of good design management will travel through Europe with a Design on Stage-tour, showing the presentations and products of the award-winning companies as well as of the nominees, and regional workshops to gather designers, companies, organizations, knowledge institutes, and design centers will discuss how further innovation can be achieved through design management.
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