A Critical Analysis of the Role of Product Design and Service Design in Achieving Design Management Goals within the UK Supermarket Retail Chains – A Case Study of Tesco, UK.
Introduction
In the world of business, firms compete to gain a stronger market share. This is done by utilising a firm’s core competencies and strengths and converting it to competitive advantage in order to provide a stronger appeal to consumers. Thus, most firms maintain an emergent corporate strategy whereby they observe trends on the markets and make changes to their business units in order to remain relevant to consumers and competitive on the markets. Therefore, most companies today try to make any unit and aspects of their activities sources of competitive advantage. One of these areas is process design which is a fundamental aspect of operations management that blends product design and service design to contribute to the competitiveness of a company and its products. The purpose of this proposal is to present a critical perspective into studying the main elements of product and service design amongst UK supermarket retain chains.
Literature Review
Process design is defined as a way of “determining the workflow, equipment needs, and implementation requirements for a particular process.”. This is about how a company brings together the different elements to produce the core products for consumers. This is known in some circles as a fundamental element of organisation and operations management.
Process design is a tool for competitive advantage because it is an opportunity for the internalisation and actualisation of innovation and the bolstering of the image of a company or firm. It is about a conscious effort to continuously develop a product, service or production process. This involves blending product design with service design because they both have elements that can continuously be changed and modified in ways that will make a firm more competitive and stronger on the markets.
Product design is defined as “the efficient and effective system through which a company generates and develops ideas for the creation of new products.”. This involves a number of steps that are brought together to create new products that are presented to the market and utilised for creating better products that customers can enjoy. In retail, the following steps are used in product design:
Screening
Preliminary design
Evaluation and improvement
Prototyping and final design.
Retail service is viewed as a cycle that revolves and ensures that a retailer is able to provide products to consumers. The retail cycle is made up of four main pointers which include:
Customer service: Assortment, Merchandizing, Marketing and Customer Care
Supplier Collaboration: Logistics, Receiving and Distribution and Warehousing
Operational Monitoring and Improvement: Sourcing & Product Planning
Store Management: Sales, Promotion and Management
For some of the largest and most significant retail entities in the UK, they go beyond just sourcing and basic retail management. They have a business model that includes the design and production of products. This means that they have an opportunity to appoint and utilise a product development strategy that will make use of everything – including the product design system and service design process in order to achieve results that will make them competitive across the markets.
Design management is a blend of “project management, design, strategy, and supply chain processes to establish and control a creative process and a culture of creativity, and build a structure and organisation for design to ensure continuous and repetitive improvement of not just products but the production system and the service offering options”. Therefore, design management is about setting up and establishing a system through which all processes in relation to the design process can be monitored, controlled and applied to the highest and best use
The application of process design is a strong determinant of success in design management because it plays a major role in bringing together the product design and service design. Therefore, this is a procedure that will require the use of various project management techniques and systems to conduct an analysis and evaluation of the major needs in terms of achieving better products and service delivery in any retail company in dealing with its consumers.
Therefore, design management can be considered efficient if it has higher levels of outputs in relation to the inputs. On the other hand, where a design management system ensures that the primary targets of competitive advantage and customer satisfaction is met, then it can be considered effective in developing innovative products and services. These different procedures ensure that every major company with a production line is able to design and maintain the best products and systems and stay in operation and make high profits.
Research Process
It has been established above that product design and service design are important elements and aspects of the design management process. Design management is meant to create a strategic business unit or activity that has the fundamental role of giving consumers the best products. However, there is a question of how this process of design management operates in the UK and other countries in the developed world. How does design management utilise elements of the competitive environment? To what extent is it related to the strategic position of a company and how do retail entities position their service delivery to make the best of this?
Thus, the research is designed to create a framework within which the elements of design management can be shared and outlined within the context of the British retail industry. This will include the evaluation of how process design is used as a part of design management to seek innovation and competitive advantage. This will draw into aspects like the role of product design in the broader design management framework. And other things like service design and how it works to promote design management roles and expectations.
Research Aims and Objectives.
The fundamental aim of the research is to conduct a critical analysis of the role of product design and service design in achieving design management goals amongst UK supermarket retail chains. In order to attain this end, the following objectives will be explored:
An evaluation of the design management goals of the UK supermarket retail industry and how this links to the strategic vision and competitive profile of these entities;
An assessment of the product design strategy and how it contributes to the fundamental goals of UK supermarket retail chains including profitability goals, customer loyalty amongst others;
An examination of the service design strategy and how it is linked to the broader design management system and how this is applied to achieve profitability and customer retention targets.
Research Strategy
The research will be done through a positivist research framework and process. Positivism is a process through which a researcher seeks to establish the truth of what actually exists in a given situation or phenomenon. This will be done by what actually exists and how it exists in actual facts.
The research will be a qualitative research because it will include the gathering of information about verbal plans rather than mathematical methods and models as its central focus.
Sampling & Data Collection
Since the research is about the UK supermarket retail industry, a sample will be taken of a UK retail entity and studied closely. To this end, Tesco will be chosen and studied critically to draw inferences and conclusions on the matter. This will include the examination of the core elements and features of Tesco and how their design management system relates to the markets and to their overall corporate strategic framework and system. This will zoom into the critical aspects of their product design and service design and how they are influenced by these two variables – the markets and the strategic vision of the company.
Data collection will be in three main phases:
Phase 1: This will be a literature review of the broad elements and features of the strategic vision of Tesco and their competitor strategy and how they relate to the markets and seek to capture and hold on to a significant market share.
Phase 2: An open ended interview with a design manager of Tesco on the product and service design system of the company and how it relates to the market and the corporate strategy
Phase 3: A survey of consumers of Tesco on how the products and services have changed over the year and how they view future implications of the development and growth of Tesco.
Data Analysis and Theorisation
The findings of these phases will be correlated and aggregated in order to form a coherent theory that answers the research question of what product design and service design in Tesco is and how it meets the strategic and market goals of the design management processes of the supermarket chain. This study will include a summary and narrative of the pointers identified in Phase 1 and then the division of trends and procedures of the design management system and its goals and implementation of its strategies will also be summed up from of a prose narrative. The findings of the survey in Phase III will be presented in a visual format as well as its simple mean and averages. This will show how effective the product design and service design systems of Tesco is in meeting its market targets and goals.
Ethical Considerations
The main ethical consideration of this research has to do with confidentiality and how it can be protected. To this end, the information that will be taken from the research will be protected by the Data Protection Act and efforts will be made to avoid divulging sensitive matters and issues.
Timeline of Project
The dissertation will be done in 8 weeks. The work breakdown of the proposed dissertation is presented below.
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