Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity

Chapter 28. Outsourcing – designers in or out?

Although not directly addressed, the McAslan case study included some insights relevant to working with external designers, or to put it differently, to the outsourcing of design services. Architecture is probably one of the most likely candidates for outsourcing. However, there are many organisations that outsource all design activities as well as development activities. There are a number of issues to be considered in the outsourcing decision, and selection of the most appropriate designers, which we will investigate in this chapter, and which will be illustrated through the case study of the Skorpion, a motorbike designed by a British design consultancy for a former East German company. There is of course a wider debate on outsourcing in general and we will briefly review a few insights into outsourcing in general before focusing on the outsourcing of design services.

INS AND OUTS OF OUTSOURCING

In a way outsourcing is a variation on the theme of collaboration and some of the issues addressed in Chapter 13 are applicable to the outsourcing debate, such as:

• Doing it for the right reasons – e.g. a strategic need and not a short-term cost saving exercise.

• The need for a good fit of areas of expertise.

• Mutual respect and understanding of each other's needs and ways of operating.

In fact outsourcing is one end of a spectrum of possibilities of collaborating with other organisations. In their article on how to decide on whether to outsource ...