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Strategic Management Capstone C

e-Types, an ambitious design firm known for its "edginess", faces a choice between two designs for a national sports team competition: a classic design with a high chance of winning but makes designers unhappy, or an edgy design aligned with its identity but unlikely to win. The recommendation is for e-Types to present the edgy design in order to stay true to its reputation for innovation and radicalism. While stabilizing cash flow in the short term with less edgy work, the firm should ultimately embrace its mission to "smash the world of design".

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Isaac Pinilla Alfaro
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163 views

Strategic Management Capstone C

e-Types, an ambitious design firm known for its "edginess", faces a choice between two designs for a national sports team competition: a classic design with a high chance of winning but makes designers unhappy, or an edgy design aligned with its identity but unlikely to win. The recommendation is for e-Types to present the edgy design in order to stay true to its reputation for innovation and radicalism. While stabilizing cash flow in the short term with less edgy work, the firm should ultimately embrace its mission to "smash the world of design".

Uploaded by

Isaac Pinilla Alfaro
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Which Design?

Strategic Management Course – Capstone Project

SUBMITTED BY

Janko Jovanovic
03. November 2019.
The situation
• e-Types is an ambitious design firm that was on the rise.
They build their identity on “edginess”. The edginess is
their intangible. In their own words, they want to
“smash the world of design”. They want to go deep with
the client and challenge them.

• They also want to grow further while balancing their


“currencies”: cash flow and their edgy identity.

• The firm was invited unexpectedly to participate in a


prominent design competition where they competed
with two bigger firms. The competition was for a
Denmark’s national sports team.

• A win would mean high visibility and exposure but


financial gains from this work weren’t big.

• The problem was that the firm have two designs, a


classic design that have a high chance of being selected
by the client but that makes designer unhappy, and an
edgy one, that likely wouldn’t win but is an embodiment
of firm’s identity.
Options
Classical design Edgy design Both

• High chance of winning • Low probability of winning • Still high chance of winning with the
classical design
• High visibility • Less visibility
• The client will likely select Classical
• Potentially small financial gain • Potentially no financial gain design anyways

• It doesn’t “smash the world” • They stay true to themselves • They might appear indecisive

• Designers are unhappy • Designers are proud • It’s still not staying true to themselves
M Y R E C O M M E N D AT I O N

e-Types should present


the radical, edgy design
Reasoning • The firm built its reputation on being innovative and radical. This
is who they are. This is why people work long hours. Submitting
anything else than edgy design could lead to diluting the brand

behind the
disrupting the good vibe that employees have.

• The firm gravitates mainly towards Mintzberg’s Strategy as


Perspective, in how they see themselves and Strategy as

recommendation
Position, by creating a niche for itself as a radical, innovative,
challenging-status-quo firm. They should stay on this strategic
course.

• The cash flow looks good at the moment, so there is no


urgency. The financial gain from this contest isn’t substantial
anyway.

• This is not a typical project and not how e-Types work. In design
contest there’s no ability to “go and dig deep into the soul of the
company” to paraphrase the managing director. While it is good
to constantly seek temporary advantages (e.g. concept of hyper-
competition), the firm has to be careful in selecting the clients.

• The 80% chance of winning is their own estimate, and it could


be wrong. They were competing agains two more prominent
firms, so the classical design might be a debacle: they might not
win the competition, and they might not stay true to
themselves.
Going forward • In order to grow, in the short to mid term,
the firm should make itself more prominent
stabilize its cash flow. Currently it is
unstable. That means doing a also bit less
edgy work to some small capacity that can
bring big customers and more cash flow. It
doesn’t necessarily means doing what
everyone else is doing, but finding the right
balance between the two “currencies” they
keep talking about. Also, remember that
“edginess” is not a binary concept – it’s
much more fluid than that. So the firm can
still find ways to be edgy and increase the
cash flow.

• In the long term, when they grow a little bit


more, that can fully embrace their “smash
the world” concept.
Thank you!
Janko Jovanovic
03. November 2019.

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