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In October of
last year, we asked the 100FTSE companies to answer four questions
about the way their organisation embraces the ageing population.
Out of the 51 companies who returned the questionnaire, 27 are based
in the UK and 24 in Continental Europe. In general, UK based companies
are significantly doing more about the ageing population than companies
based in Continental Europe.
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| 1
Are you actively designing products/services for the over 50s? |
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|
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| All: |
yes 37% |
no 63% |
| UK: |
yes 55% |
no 45% |
| C Europe: |
yes 17% |
no 83% |
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|
|
| 2
Is end-user age a major factor in your design strategy? |
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|
|
| All: |
yes 31% |
no 69% |
| UK: |
yes 52% |
no 48% |
| C Europe: |
yes 08% |
no 92% |
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|
|
| 3
Will the ageing population significantly affect your business? |
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|
|
| All: |
yes 29% |
no 71% |
| UK: |
yes 52% |
no 48% |
| C Europe: |
yes 04% |
no 96% |
| |
|
|
| 4
Does your company employ significant numbers of over 50s? |
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|
|
| All: |
yes 18% |
no 82% |
| UK: |
yes 22% |
no 78% |
| C Europe: |
yes 13% |
no 87% |
Design Council,
October 1999
Design Council
research conducted in 1999 shows that design continues to be valued
very highly. Consensus Research was commissioned to interview
650 opinion leaders in June 1999 (450 from business, 100 from
government and 100 from education)
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design
plays a ‘significant’ role in 67% of large firms
but only 47% of smaller firms
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| •
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design
as a management tool is regarded as ‘integral’
to the way they are run by 24% of companies
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| •
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84% of
businesses now employ design staff or consultants in some
capacity (compared to a similar survey by NatWest in 1998
which found that 75% of businesses were using design staff
or consultants)
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| •
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one in
five businesses has a dedicated design department
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| •
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only
8% of public sector organisations have a design department,
but 79% use design consultants |
Consensus
Research carried out for the Design Council, June 1999
A survey of
nearly 2,000 design graduates shows that three years after graduating,
only 4.9% were unemployed and looking for work - figures which compare
favourably with national averages.
It also reveals that skills on which courses placed high value -
like creativity, innovation, communication and self-motivation -
were considered most important by graduates employed in jobs across
a wide range of sectors.
Over the last 30 years, numbers taking art and design related courses
at a higher level have increased fifteen-fold from 4,500 to 72,000,
while the number of people going to university has risen from below
6% to nearly 30%.
Survey by Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College,
and 13 other educational institutions, March 1999
At the end
of 1998, an estimated 128 million people worldwide were connected
to the Internet, a figure expected to grow to more than 300 million
by 2005.
E-commerce revenues in Europe are expected to rise from $6 billion
in 1998 to $223 billion by 2002.
40% of Chief Executives anticipate that 10% of their company revenues
will come from e-commerce over the next five years - half expect
this proportion to exceed 20%.
From the 1999 PricewaterhouseCoopers/World Economic Forum global
survey
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