Design Council
In 2005, the Cox Review of Creativity in Business asked why small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are not making better use of the UK’s creative talents, and what could be done about it.
In his review, Sir George Cox identified a number of reasons why smaller businesses who want to grow are not successfully identifying, implementing or managing the opportunities for creativity and innovation which could help improve their competitiveness and performance.
According to business organisations, and, importantly, the people who run small businesses themselves:
- Companies know about creativity, but aren’t really sure where or how it can be used in their business or to meet the specific challenges that they are facing
- Companies aren’t confident that any investment – of either time or money – in new ways of doing things would give a satisfactory return
- Many companies don’t know where to turn to for help or advice on bringing creativity into their businesses
Over the past four years, the Design Council has been working with businesses to develop a programme aimed at helping smaller companies identify where creative skills could help significantly improve their performance and then take action to make this happen.
The Cox Review recommended that this programme, called Designing Demand, should be made available nationally, so smaller businesses across the UK can find out how to harness creativity in order to help them grow.
So that’s what we’re doing. We’re working with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to roll out Designing Demand throughout the UK.
While Designing Demand is a great programme, it’s not the only answer to helping SMEs understand how applying creative approaches across their businesses can lead to growth. The Cox Review also made three further recommendations
- We need to see more creative specialists – including designers – in the boardroom
- The IoD’s Chartered Director programme could include ‘managing creativity’ on its syllabus
- The media could encourage creativity and innovation in the same way that programmes like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship
